Chinese President Hu Jintao extended festival greetings to all young people in China on the Chinese Youth Day Wednesday.

Hu, also general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), encouraged young people and Chinese Communist Youth League members in rural areas to contribute to "building a new socialist countryside" and "constructing a relatively well-off society," in reply to a letter written by Memet Shawuer, a young man from Daxi Village in Weili County of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

"I've learned from your letter," Hu said. "People of all ethnic groups in your village have worked hard and changed the village's backwardness with their own hands. The village is now well-off, harmonious and united. I am pleased with your achievement."

Hu said he expects young people of different nationalities in Daxi Village to "always cherish high aspiration, keep studying technical know-how, make innovation in production, take a lead in practicing good virtues, safeguard national unity and make new contributions to building new socialist countryside."

Memet Shawuer, a CPC branch committee member, deputy village head and Youth League secretary of Daxi Village, won high praise from villagers for turning a poor village into a prosperous one by applying science and technology along with other young men in the village.

As a reward, he received a medal for "national outstanding youth" and met with Hu and other CPC senior officials in 2003. Memet Shawuer and other young villagers wrote a letter to Hu Jintao not long ago, reporting their recent production and life. The village's per capita income is 6,328 yuan (US$762).
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(Xinhua News Agency May 5, 2005)