An unprecedented training program designed to teach legions of Chinese county-level leaders new socialist construction strategy is proving a success.

Hou Junshu, secretary of Yanqing County Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), described his seven-day immersion training experience as enlightening.

"The immersion courses help us better understand the strategy of building a socialist countryside," said Hou, who was one of the 50 county-level Party secretaries organized to sit in the immersion course that began on April 21 at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee.

In a bid to accelerate its rural development, China launched a campaign of building a new socialist countryside early this year to help farmers share in the country's prosperity.

Party secretaries and government leaders of 5,300 counties across the country will be organized to sit in week-long training courses at five major bases for training of county-level Party and government leaders by January next year, said Professor Xu Xianglin with the Department of Economics of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee.

The five bases are the Central Party School, the National School of Administration, China Executive Leadership Academies in Pudong, Shanghai, Jinggangshan, in Jiangxi Province, and Yan'an City, Shaanxi Province.

"It is the first and biggest of the kind since the country's reforms and opening-up drive began in late 1970s," said Xu.

The participants are required to ask questions, make suggestions and voice expectations. They will be taught theories about new socialist countryside construction, and experience and lessons in this regard obtained from foreign countries, and will exchange views at group discussions at the immersion courses.

(Xinhua News Agency May 13, 2006)