BEIJING - A senior leader Thursday stressed efforts to maintain steady and relatively fast economic growth and safeguard social harmony and stability in west China's Tibet autonomous region and Tibetan-inhabited areas in Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu and Qinghai provinces.

Jia Qinglin, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), made the remarks while presiding over a meeting on promoting development and stability in the mentioned areas.

Noting that the CPC's 18th national congress will be held this year, Jia urged authorities to do a good job in work concerning Tibet and Tibetan-inhabited areas in the four provinces, which he said carries overall significance for the Party and the country.

"We should consider both internal and external situations and firmly follow the gist of 'making progress while maintaining stability,' striving for a steady economic growth in Tibet and the Tibetan-inhabited areas in the four provinces," Jia said.

Urging earnest efforts for safeguarding social stability, Jia, who is also chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said the positive roles of different groups should be tapped to lay a social foundation for development and enduring stability in those areas.

For development

Jia said the country's guideline on supporting Tibet's economic and social development in the period of 2011-2015 should be implemented in earnest while the action plan for supporting development in the four provinces' Tibetan-inhabited areas should be introduced in a quick manner.

Every effort should be made to ensure that every policy introduced by the central government to support development in Tibet and other Tibetan-inhabited areas is well translated into practice, he said.

Jia stressed that the development efforts should aim to improve the livelihoods of local farmers and herders, and focus on providing them with better access to public services, namely housing, education, health care, employment and social security.

For stability

"Currently, the clique of the Dalai Lama are trying in vain to continuously create incidents in Tibet and the Tibetan-inhabited areas in the four provinces," Jia said, calling for firm efforts, which are led by the CPC and government's local units and joined by the masses, to safeguard social harmony and stability.

"(Authorities) should implement the prescribed measures well to resolutely crush the Dalai Lama clique's conspiracy of making Tibetan-inhabited areas unstable, thus making the masses able to live and work there comfortably," Jia said.

He said local officials and cadres should be mobilized to visit people at grassroots positions, understand ideas of the masses in a better manner, and improve the people's trust over and support for local units of the CPC and the government.

The constructive role of the religious figures who love the country should be well tapped in promoting social harmony and stability, he said, adding that efforts will be exerted to make basic public services more available to monasteries and monks.