BEIJING, Nov. 28 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Hu Jintao has urged unswerving efforts to improve the building of the Communist Party of China (CPC) to secure the Party's role as the steel core of the country's leadership.

    Hu, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, made the call at a group study of the members of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on Friday.

    With more than 75 million members and 3.7 million grassroots organizations, the CPC shoulders a tough task of Party building and management to lead the country's 1.3 billion people in economic and social development, Hu said.

    To promote a democratic and scientific decision-making mechanism for the Party and government is a crucial task for the Party, he said.

    In an era of great development and major transformation, Hu stressed, the CPC is facing long-term, complex and severe tests of challenges it would encounter as a ruling party in the process of reform, opening up, and implementation of market economy.

    To improve Party building is also an urgent requirement of coping with the international financial crisis and maintaining the country's economic growth, Hu said.

    He urged CPC organizations at all levels to promote organizational construction, improve regulations and fight against corruption.

    The Party should also establish and improve an institutional system based on the Party's Constitution and the principles of democratic centralism...and ensure the Party's unity and strengthen the Party's vigor of innovation, Hu said.