1st Ld-Writethru: Agenda set for China's legislative session

China's national legislators elected Friday a presidium and set the agenda for the legislature's annual session, which will open Saturday.

A 170-member presidium was elected to take charge of the procedures of the Fourth Session of the 12th National People's Congress (NPC), which is scheduled to conclude on March 16, said Fu Ying, spokeswoman for the session, at a press conference Friday.

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 priorities for China's economic and social development from 2016 to 2020, along with the country's first centenary goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

Another arrangement will be examining the draft charity law, the first law to regulate charity activities in China. The bill has gone through two readings at the bi-monthly sessions of the NPC Standing Committee.

In addition, there will be six regular reports to be submitted to the legislators annually, including the reports on 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 that the public and international community are eager to know," she said.

Some panel discussions of NPC delegations will be open to reporters.

A preparatory meeting was held Friday 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 national legislature will effectively fulfill its duty and respond to the central leadership's strategy of "Four Comprehensives" as well as five new development concepts, which are 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 is composed of senior officials of the Communist Party of China (CPC), non-Communist parties, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, personages without party affiliation, deputies from government agencies and people's organizations, and leading members of all the 35 delegations to the NPC session, including those from Hong Kong and Macao and the People's Liberation Army.

As of Thursday, 2,911 of 2,943 NPC deputies had registered at the session's secretariat. Endi