TIANJIN - Unswerving efforts should be made to promote institutional and technological innovation in transforming China's economic growth pattern, Vice-Premier Li Keqiang said.

Innovation is the key to stimulating domestic demand, increasing the impetus for growth and coping with risks and difficulties, Li said during his inspection tour in the northern port city of Tianjin from Thursday to Friday.

When visiting the Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Li said that innovation is vital, in particular in the face of the current complicated and more severe international environment, which holds increasing uncertainties.