A spokesman with the secretariat of the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) National Congress said on Sunday that promoting ecological progress improves the overall planning for building socialism with Chinese characteristics.

The 18th CPC National Congress, which concluded on Wednesday, passed an amendment to the Party Constitution into which a new paragraph on promoting socialist ecological progress is added.

With the revision, the overall planning for building socialism with Chinese characteristics now has five major parts: developing socialist market economy, promoting socialist democracy, developing advanced socialist culture, building harmonious socialist society and promoting ecological progress.

The report to the 18th CPC National Congress delivered by Hu Jintao said that the Party will "work hard to build a beautiful country, and achieve lasting and sustainable development of the Chinese nation."

The spokesman said that promoting ecological progress is an important achievement by the Party in further understanding the nature and relations between human and the nature, as well as a requirement for realizing scientific development.

With regard to the other four parts of the overall planning for the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the amendment also added new content.

For developing socialist market economy, the amended Party Constitution added, "It is dedicated to promoting harmonized development of industrialization, IT application, urbanization and agricultural modernization."

Such a revision will help all Party members better understand the key tasks of the reform and opening up and the modernization construction under new circumstances, the spokesman said.