Legislators set agenda for annual sessions, appoint steering group
Print Edition
CHINA’S legislators yesterday elected a presidium and set the agenda for the their annual session, which opens today.
The 170-member presidium was elected to take charge of procedures of the Fourth Session of the 12th National People’s Congress (NPC), which runs until March 16, Fu Ying, spokeswoman for the session, told a press conference.
Li Jianguo was elected secretary-general of the session, she said.
An important event on this year’s schedule is to review the draft 13th five-year national development plan. It will define China’s priorities for economic and social development from 2016 to 2020, along with its first centenary goal of building a “moderately prosperous” society.
The road map will outline the policy framework, priorities, and economic and social goals, and serve as a guide to development over the coming five years.
It is set to embody the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) new concepts, with innovation foremost in strategies for a balanced and sustainable growth.
This is the first five-year plan drafted under the current Chinese leadership, and also the first since China’s economy entered what policymakers refer to as the “new normal,” a phase of moderating growth based more on consumption than the previous mainstay of exports.
The world’s second-largest economy is still facing downward pressure and undergoing structural reforms amid fragile global recovery, after growing 6.9 percent last year, its slowest in 25 years.
The guideline also marks the final countdown to the goal of building a “moderately prosperous” society by 2021, the 100th anniversary of the creation of the CPC. The target means doubling GDP and per capita income in 2020 from 2010 levels, to lift 70 million people out of poverty.
Based on research and public opinion, the program will unveil growth expectations in the 2016-20 period for China’s US$10 trillion economy.
Another arrangement of this year’s session will be examining the draft charity law, the first to regulate such activities in China. The bill has gone through two readings at the bi-monthly sessions of the NPC Standing Committee.
Also, six regular reports will be submitted to legislators, including government work, national economic and social development plan, central and local budgets, as well as those from the NPC Standing Committee, Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuratorate.
There will be 15 or 16 press conferences on the sidelines of the session, and Premier Li Keqiang will meet reporters after the closing of the session, Fu said.
“The press conferences will cover a rich variety of topics,” she claimed.
A preparatory meeting was held yesterday morning to elect the session’s presidium and secretary general and adopt the agenda, presided over by Zhang Dejiang, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, after a meeting of chairman and vice chairpersons.
The presidium held its first meeting after the preparatory meeting and elected its executive chairpersons.
The legislature will fulfill its duty and respond to the central leadership’s strategy of “Four Comprehensives” as well as the five development concepts, of innovation, coordination, green development, opening up and sharing, Zhang said.
The session aims to unite Chinese people for a good start for the 13th five-year development plan, he said.
The presidium comprises senior officials of the CPC, non-Communist parties, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, people without party affiliation, deputies from government agencies and people’s organizations, and leading members of the 35 delegations to the NPC session, including those from Hong Kong and Macau, and the People’s Liberation Army.
As of Thursday, 2,911 of 2,943 NPC deputies had registered for the sessions.
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