Summing up China’s development over the last 10 years, Chinese President and Communist Party of China (CPC) leader Hu Jintao said on Thursday that a solid foundation for achieving “the great renewal of the Chinese nation” was in place.

Addressing more than 2,000 party delegates and 1,700 journalists at the Great Hall of The People, Hu said that China had abandoned its reputation as a poor and backward nation to become an increasingly prosperous world power.

The transition, Hu said, benefitted from his Scientific Outlook on Development, a theoretical adaptation of the ideals of Marxism-Leninism and the thoughts of his predecessors.

Going forward, he said, China must deepen its political and economic reforms while maintaining one-party rule under the guidance of “socialism with Chinese characteristics”.

By 2020, the country should achieve its target for completing the construction of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, Hu said.

“Freeing up the mind, seeking truth from facts, keeping up with the times and being realistic and pragmatic. These are the salient features of the Scientific Outlook on Development,” he said.

Hu is scheduled to retire as party leader after 10 years this week during the party’s 18th National Congress, in favor of Vice President Xi Jinping, who is also expected to replace Hu as president in March.

Charting a course ahead, Hu said that China’s current development remained “unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable”, and faced challenges from a weak capacity for scientific or technological innovation, a wide development gap between urban and rural areas and environmental constraints.

“Some people still lead hard lives ... Some sectors are prone to corruption and other to misconduct. The fight against corruption remains a serious challenge,” he said.

Hu may have been referring to several corruption cases involving top party leaders, in particular the case of recently ousted Central Committee member Bo Xilai.

Hu repeatedly said that the party must persevere in reforming its political system and economy amid challenges facing the nation. “The underlying issue we face in economic structural reform is how to strike a balance between the role of the government and that of the market.”

On economics, Hu said that China was well on the road to making the Renminbi a market-based currency.

Fang Xinghai, the director general of Shanghai’s Financial Services Office, said the nation’s currency policy would help realize the nation’s ambition of making the Renminbi a global currency. The creation Shanghai as a competitive international financial market would be crucial in this process, he said.

"The reason is simple ... Just like the US dollar, everyone who holds US dollars has to invest back in the US, either in treasuries or in stocks. Otherwise no one is willing to take your currency, because your currency is useless," he said in an interview.

The making of Shanghai as an international financial center backed by a continental economy would be complete by 2020.

An Indonesian expert on China, Natalia Soebagio, said the once-in-a-decade change in leadership in the CPC and the state would ensure the steady continuation of China’s long term plan that was developed during the start of the reform era under Deng Xiaoping in 1978.

“China is now facing a considerable challenge from an economic slowdown and a wide income gap. There is a need to not only improving growth but most importantly how to improve the quality of economic development,” she said.

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