President Xi Jinping has urged steps to optimize the practice of eastern and western provincial areas pairing off to help each other in order to carry forward the momentum of poverty elimination, accelerate the modernization of agriculture and rural areas and promote rural vitalization.

In an instruction published on Thursday, Xi highlighted the need to adapt the program of East-West Pairing-off Cooperation for Poverty Reduction, whereby a developed province in the east assists a less-developed region in the west, to the new situation and circumstances.

The program, together with central departments offering assistance to designated poverty-stricken areas, is a major decision by the Communist Party of China Central Committee to promote the coordinated growth between regions and common prosperity, said Xi, who is also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee.

He called for steps to focus on consolidating the outcomes of poverty reduction and pushing forward rural vitalization across the board with the furthering of the two programs.