Shanxi province has steadily promoted innovation-driven development to help its economic transformation, with greater efforts in serving rural vitalization, national lawmakers said at a group discussion on Wednesday during the ongoing second session of the 14th National People's Congress.

Tang Dengjie, a deputy to the 14th NPC, the country's top legislature and also Party secretary of the province, said that Shanxi has increased its investment in innovation to advance the growth of emerging industries, such as smart phones, new semiconductor materials, high-end equipment and life and medicine, last year while improving the high-quality development of coal, a major resource of the area.

Highlighting the significance of dealing with the relationship between traditional and new industries, he added that the province has also attached higher importance to optimizing its business environment.

He encouraged enterprises to focus more on developing new energies and new materials to help the province's economic transformation.

Xue Mingyao, another NPC deputy as well as mayor of Jincheng, a city of Shanxi, said that more construction projects, including those on agricultural products and road building for tourism, have also been invested in, promoting the rural vitalization last year.

Lauding the projects, Guo Fenglian, an NPC deputy from the province's Dazhai village, added: "The efforts to vitalize rural areas are to make local villagers feel a greater sense of fulfillment and happiness."

She introduced that her village has worked with agricultural research institutes to cultivate high-quality crops, with endeavor to develop e-commerce and tourism, so as to benefit more villagers.