3) We will focus on making oversight more effective, and further improve oversight methods. Oversight powers are important powers granted to people's congresses by the Constitution and laws. Oversight by people's congresses carries the force of law and is carried out in the name of the country and the people. People's congresses exercise their oversight powers collectively in accordance with the law and prescribed procedures. They do not exercise administrative, judicial or procuratorial powers, nor do they directly deal with specific issues. Over the years, we have made tremendous efforts to strengthen and improve the oversight work of people's congresses with considerable success, created a body of effective work mechanisms and methods, and helped solve major problems that have an overall impact and are of deep concern to the people. Experience shows that oversight by people's congresses in accordance with the law helps governments, courts and procuratorates improve their work. Accepting oversight by people's congresses also facilitates governments' administration in accordance with the law as well as the impartial justice of courts and procuratorates. To properly handle their relations with governments, courts and procuratorates when overseeing their work, it is important for people's congresses to act in strict accordance with the Law on Oversight. This requires us to always uphold the approach of concentrating on core issues, identifying priorities and seeking substantive results, and constantly improve the way we carry out oversight. This year, we will intensify oversight in the following three areas.

First, we will further intensify oversight of budgets. Overseeing the implementation of central and local budgets is an important power granted by law to the NPC Standing Committee and an important guarantee for comprehensively implementing the budgets approved by the NPC and its resolutions on them. The Standing Committee used to deliberate the report on the implementation of budgets for the first five months of the year at its June meeting when it heard and deliberated the final budget of the central government for the previous year. In order to make the NPC's oversight of budgets more effective and in accordance with the Law on Oversight and the Budget Law, we will hold a special hearing and deliberation at the August meeting of the Standing Committee on the State Council's report on the implementation of the budgets since the beginning of this year and focus on examining the implementation of the NPC's resolutions on budgets; the main revenue and expenditures in central and local budgets; the implementation of fiscal policy and fiscal and taxation measures; the availability and use of funds for key expenditures such as agriculture, education, science and technology, culture, health and social security; transfer payments from the central government to local governments; and the issuance of government bonds.

Second, we will carry out investigations and studies on compiling the Outline of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan. To implement the guiding principles of the Seventeenth National Party Congress and the Central Economic Work Conference, in the first half of this year we will organize NPC special committees and executive bodies of the Standing Committee to carry out investigations and studies on issues involved in the compilation of the Outline of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan, including the distribution of national income; economic restructuring; employment and social security; development of education, science and technology, culture and health; agriculture, rural areas and farmers; energy conservation, emissions reductions and environmental protection; and reform of the fiscal and taxation systems. We will put forward a substantial number of comments and suggestions to provide the central government with material for making decisions, and prepare the NPC to deliberate and approve the outline during its session next year.

Third, we will make inquiries and interrogations on special issues in accordance with the law. Inquiries and interrogations are legal means by which people's congresses oversee governments, courts and procuratorates. On the basis of the Law on Oversight and the guiding principles of the Decision of the NPC Standing Committee on Intensifying Oversight of Economic Work, this year we will select a number of issues of widespread concern to NPC deputies; hear reports on those issues by relevant departments of the State Council; and as provided for in relevant laws, ask main leaders from those departments of the State Council to listen to suggestions, respond to inquiries and answer questions.

The 2010 Shanghai World Expo, with the slogan "a better city, a better life," will be an international arena for cities to showcase their cultural fruits, share their experience and ideas of development, and explore how to coordinate urban and rural development. The Expo will be another global event hosted by China, taking up where the Beijing Olympic Games left off. We will give our utmost support to all preparatory work to ensure the Expo is successful, spectacular and unforgettable.