President Xi Jinping has underlined the important role of technical workers in building China into a strong manufacturing country and urged reforms in fostering a strong industrial workforce.

Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks in a congratulatory message delivered to the First Innovation Exchange Conference for Craftsmen of the Nation, which opened in Beijing on Wednesday.

In the message, Xi also extended his sincere greetings to the technical professionals and model workers and expressed his festive congratulations to workers around the country ahead of International Workers' Day, which falls on May 1.

He said that technical workers are an important force that makes "made-in-China" and "created-in-China" a reality.

The working class and all working people in China should carry on the spirit of model workers and craftsmanship and adapt themselves to the needs of the scientific, technological and industrial transformation in today's world, Xi said.

He encouraged workers nationwide to work hard, be innovative and pioneering, and keep improving their techniques and skills in order to contribute their wisdom and strength to advancing the country's high-quality development, implementing the nation's manufacturing power strategy and comprehensively building China into a modern socialist country.

Xi urged Party committees and governments at various levels to intensify reforms in fostering the industrial workforce, attach importance to leveraging the role of technical professionals and strive to enable them to innovate in their work.

The conference, held by the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, provided a platform for technical professionals to develop exchanges.

Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC in 2012, Xi has on various occasions emphasized the importance of cultivating more high-quality technical professionals, promoting the spirit of craftsmanship and developing the modern vocational education system.

As China's economy transitions from a phase of rapid growth to a state of high-quality development, it faces a shortage of about 20 million technical professionals. In 2020, the fifth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Committee proposed to launch special projects to train more top-level engineers and highly skilled personnel.