The 38th meeting of the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reform, presided by President Xi Jinping on Tuesday, approved a document aimed at improving the system and strategy for main functional area. The concept of main functional area is regional in nature and is defined by an area's specific, core function based on its environment, social and economic strength, and development potential. The idea is to ensure different main functional areas cooperate and collaborate with each other to achieve joint development and prosperity.

In 2013, the National Development and Reform Commission, China's top economic planning body, issued a document on implementing the main functional area strategy and promoting the construction of main functional areas. And Tuesday's meeting emphasized that the main functional area construction is a big strategy for economic development and environmental protection.

In the next stage, the focus should be on improving the main functional area strategy and system, allowing main functional areas to help develop and protect land, implementing the main functional area strategy at the city and county levels, and improving the long-term mechanism of differential coordinated development of main functional areas. And systemic reform and legal construction should be expedited to lay a solid foundation for the development and protection of land nationwide.