BEIJING, Feb. 26 -- Chinese Premier Li Qiang has called for new progress and breakthroughs in the building of a unified national market to effectively support the nation's new development paradigm and high-quality development.

The premier made the remarks during a themed study session of the State Council, or the cabinet, which he chaired on Monday.

Li said that to push forward the construction of a unified national market, it is necessary to fully leverage China's advantages, such as its super-large market scale, abundance in production factors and complete industrial system, as well as removing the key obstacles that hinder the flow of the economy.

The premier said that it is also necessary to clear out policies and regulations that hinder the building of a unified market and fair competition. Great efforts should be made to break down the barriers to market access, and continuously deal with prominent issues such as local-level protection practices, market segmentation and chaos in investment promotion, he said.

Li also called for improvements to fundamental mechanisms and rules on intellectual property rights protection, market access, fair competition and social credit, as well as the refinement of auxiliary policies in order to provide mechanism support in building a unified national market.