Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao underscores the necessity of strict control of China's overheating economy at an executive meeting of the State Council, or the central government, he presided over Wednesday.

The meeting cited the in-depth development of economic structural reform as a "major task" of his government to fulfill this year.

By analyzing the present supply and demand situation and prices in the steel industry, the meeting underlined both the urgency and importance of macroscopic control of the industry and taking direct tough measures to cope with the hiking price of iron ore on the international market.

China is required to sternly control the export of steel products and strengthen the coordination and management of iron ore imports, the meeting found.

Meanwhile, the meeting called for the rigid control of overheating investments in fixed assets, especially in the real estate and urban development sectors, so as to cool down the excessive demand for production materials such as steel, a substantial step crucial to maintaining stable economic growth.

The meeting prompted the government to put due effort into implementing the tasks included in the work report delivered at the Third Session of the Tenth National People's Congress (NPC) on March 5.

Unstable and unhealthy factors should be eliminated from the country's national economy and the foundation for macro-control has yet to be consolidated during the current period of reform, noted the meeting, and they constitute essential steps to build a harmonious country with each element of society well developed.

To coordinate the work between agriculture and industry, rural and urban areas, economic and social development, domestic development and opening-up to the outside world are also of great importance, the meeting said.

(Xinhua News Agency March 31, 2005)