China's top political advisory body convenes annual session

The National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country's top political advisory body, started its annual full session in Beijing Sunday.

About 2,200 members of the 12th CPPCC National Committee from different sectors across the country will discuss major issues concerning the country's development during the session, scheduled to conclude on March 12.

At the opening meeting in the Great Hall of the People, CPPCC National Committee Chairman Jia Qinglin delivered a report on the work of the CPPCC National Committee's Standing Committee over the past five years.

Jia said China had overcome "severe challenges" and made "extraordinary achievements" in reform, opening up and socialist modernization over the past five years, and the CPPCC had carried on, made innovations in, and consolidated and developed its cause.

The CPPCC fully played its role in coordinating relations, pooling strengths, making suggestions and proposals to the central leadership, and serving the overall interests of the country, Jia said.

He said the CPPCC had made important contributions to the country's development in various fields such as scientific development, social stability, China's reunification and foreign exchanges.

Top Communist Party of China (CPC) and state leaders Hu Jintao, Xi Jinping, Wu Bangguo, Wen Jiabao, Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan and Zhang Gaoli attended the opening meeting.

Founded in 1949, the CPPCC consists of elite figures of the Chinese society who are willing to serve the think tank for the government and for the country's legislative and judicial organs.