BEIJING (CHINA DAILY/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - President Xi Jinping delivered an important speech in Beijing on Tuesday at a preparatory meeting for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, stressing that successfully holding the Games is a major event for the country and a solemn commitment made to the international community.

Xi highlighted the importance of adhering to the new development philosophy and ensuring a green, shared, open and clean process in hosting the Games.

A proposal for the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) for national economic and social development clearly states that preparations for the Games should be well organised, and lists the building of China into a sports power as one of China's long-term goals by 2035, when the socialist modernisation will basically be realised.

The Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Beijing not only constitutes an important part of China's efforts to create healthy life for people and build the country into a sport power, but also helps release domestic demand potential and promote the building of a new development paradigm.

The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics are an important opportunity to showcase China's image, promote its development and boost its national spirit. Preparations for the Games will also test China's comprehensive strength.

Venue and infrastructure construction remain top priorities. Since the successful bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics, various aspects of the preparatory work have been systematically designed and carried out in an orderly way, and positive progress has been made, from promoting the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region to the vigorous development of snow and ice sports; from the sustainable approach to the construction of venues to the improvement of people's quality of life.

So far, all the venues have been constructed and relevant infrastructure built, laying a solid foundation for hosting the Games.

The stadiums, which combine elements of traditional Chinese culture with a modern sense of science and technology, not only embody the vision of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, but are also a vivid reflection of China's efforts for high-quality development.

The process of preparing for the 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics is a process of putting the ecology-first, resource conservation and environmentally friendliness ideologies into practice, and a process for creating a new model of sustainable development for the Olympic Games and the hosting region.

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