Chinese President Hu Jintao has urged the country's central areas to step up economic development,encouraging local people to explore scientific and practical ways to achieve rapid progress.

President Hu Jintao (second from right) talks with a local farmer in central China's Hunan Province. [Xinhua]

Hu, also general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee, visited central China's Hunan Province starting Oct. 1.

Deepening reforms can bring continuous impetus for development,pushing forward economic and social progress more rapidly and comprehensively, Hu said.

The president also showed great attention to local farmers' lives as well as agricultural and rural development.

He said that local authorities should devote more energy to promote strategic readjustment in agricultural structures, carry forward various reforms in villages, increase investment in rural infrastructures and open new channels to settle surplus rural labor.

During Hu's inspection in Hunan, he visited the national hybridrice research center headed by Yuan Longping, a celebrated professor dubbed the "father of hybrid rice" and also an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Praising experts' contributions to the research over the new variety of super hybrid rice, Hu said that grain was key to the country's economic security and the people's survival.

Hu urged the central areas to further protect farmland and enhance the capacity of agricultural production, especially the grain output.

"We should rely on scientific technologies to increase the grain yield. Moreover, our policies should be improved to arouse farmers' production initiative, which will help ensure food security," Hu added.

Hu learned about local people's living standards and the service level of civil servants by visiting farms, workshops, community stores and employment service centers.

He said that government officials at various levels should base their work on the realization, protection and development of the masses' fundamental interests. They should exert themselves in strenuous work and crack down on any corruption, money worship, hedonism and selfishness.

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