BEIJING - China should accelerate the improvement of the socialist market economy and the change of the growth model, said Hu Jintao in his report to the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on Thursday morning.

"In response to changes in both domestic and international economic developments, we should speed up the creation of a new growth model and ensure that development is based on improved quality and performance," he said.

He said taking economic development as the central task is vital to national renewal, and development still holds the key to addressing all the problems China is facing.

Only by promoting sustained and sound economic development can China lay a solid material foundation for enhancing the country's prosperity and strength, improving the people's wellbeing and ensuring social harmony and stability, he said.

In contemporary China, pursuing development in a scientific way best embodies the thinking that only development counts, he said.

"Taking the pursuit of development in a scientific way as the underlying guideline and accelerating the change of the growth model as a major task is a strategic choice we have made for promoting China's overall development," he said.

He said the country should fire all types of market participants with new vigor for development, increase motivation for pursuing innovation-driven development, establish a new system for developing modern industries, and create new favorable conditions for developing the open economy.

This will make economic development driven more by domestic demand, especially consumer demand, by a modern service industry and strategic emerging industries, by scientific and technological progress, by a workforce of higher quality and innovation in management, by resource conservation and a circular economy, and by coordinated and mutually reinforcing urban-rural development and development between regions, Hu said.

He said deepening reform is crucial for accelerating the change of the growth model.

The underlying issue in economic structural reform is how to strike a balance between the role of the government and that of the market, he said.

While unwaveringly consolidate and develop the public sector of the economy, the country must also encourage, support and guide the development of the non-public sector, Hu said.

He said reforms should also be accelerated in fiscal, taxation and financial systems. A multilevel capital market should be developed, and steady steps be taken to make interest rates and the RMB exchange rates market-based, and promote the RMB's convertibility under capital accounts in due course.

He stressed that top priority must be given to scientific and technological innovation in overall national development; strategic adjustment of the economic structure should be carried out as the major goal of accelerating the change of the growth model; urban and rural development should be better balanced and integrated; and all-around improvements to China's open economy should be promoted.

"We must have firm confidence in winning the tough battle of deepening reform of the economic structure across the board and of accelerating the change of the growth model so as to increase the vitality and competitiveness of China's economy," he said.