President Xi Jinping on Tuesday stressed efforts to advance the building of a unified national market and promote the high-quality development of the marine economy.

Xi made the remarks at a meeting of the Central Commission for Financial and Economic Affairs, which he heads.

In his speech, the president emphasised that building a unified national market is essential for creating a new development pattern and promoting high-quality development, urging strengthened coordination and cooperation to build synergy in related work.

He stressed that advancing Chinese modernisation requires promoting the marine economy's high-quality development and forging a Chinese path of leveraging marine resources to achieve strength.

Also at the meeting, the country's leaders pledged to step up regulation of aggressive price-cutting by Chinese companies, as the world's second-biggest economy tries to shake off persistent deflationary pressures.

"Enterprises engaging in disorderly low-price competition must be regulated in accordance with laws and regulations," the commission was quoted as saying.

"Businesses should be guided to improve product quality and support the orderly phasing out of outdated production capacity." (Xinhua/Reuters)