Chinese leaders meet, look for ways to boost sluggish economy

Looking for new ideas to revamp the sluggish economy, China's top leaders led by President Xi Jinping today attended a group study at a technology hub known as China's Silicon Valley, their first such meeting outside Zhongnanhai, the highly-guarded leadership compound here.
Members of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) Politburo headed by Xi visited the Zhongguancun Science Park, which, after 20 years of development, now boasts about 20,000 hi-tech companies.
The group study meeting is a system China's top leadership uses to study major issues. Since 2002, over 100 experts and scholars have delivered lectures in Zhongnanhai, the seat of the top leadership.

Usually all high-profile meetings take place at the highly-guarded Zhongnanhai, an imperial garden in central Beijing, located adjacent to the Forbidden City which serves as the central headquarters for CPC.
It is for the first time such a study has been held outside the central authority's seat at Zhongnanhai, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Analysts said the move signalled the Chinese top leadership's determination to keep in close contact with the masses and seek an innovation-driven development pattern.

Situated in the northwestern part of Beijing, Zhongguancun is known as the technology hub and is often referred to as the Silicon Valley in Beijing.

The top leaders viewed world-class innovative products at Zhongguancun and talked with executives and scientists about research and implementation of new technologies such as additive manufacturing, cloud computing, nano materials, bio-chips and precise crop breeding.
China's new leadership is on the lookout for new ideas as economy has slowed down to 7.5 per cent in the second quarter with prospects of missing the official target of 7.5 fixed for the year, which rarely happened in China's rapid rise in the recent years.
As a new step to deepen reforms, the new leadership launched the first Free Trade Zone at Shanghai to boost local and foreign investment by initiating new set of financial reforms.

Presiding over the group study, Xi stressed importance of science and technology in enhancing national strength, saying that innovation is a global trend and also a need inside the country.
"We must enhance awareness of unexpected challenges and grab the opportunity of the science and technology revolution. We cannot wait, hesitate or slack," Xi said.