WUHAN - Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday called for achieving high-quality economic growth through developing the Yangtze River economic belt.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks at a symposium on promoting the development of the Yangtze River economic belt in Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei province.

He stressed the importance of enhancing reform and innovation, strategic coordination as well as planning and guiding in developing the economic belt.

"It is a major decision made by the CPC Central Committee and a major strategy concerning overall national development to promote the development of the Yangtze River economic belt," Xi said.

He called for all-out efforts to protect the Yangtze River, saying there should be no large-scale development of the river.

"In developing the economic belt, the key lies in properly dealing with the relationship between pressing ahead on the whole and making breakthroughs in key areas, between ecological environment protection and economic development, between making an overall plan and making unremitting efforts, between getting rid of old growth engines and cultivating new engines, and between developing individually and developing in a coordinated way," he said.