Yu Zhengsheng, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), delivers a report on the work of the CPPCC National Committee's Standing Committee at the fourth session of the 12th CPPCC National Committee at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, March 3, 2016. [Photo by Zou Hong/China Daily]

BEIJING - China's top political advisory body convened its annual meeting Thursday in Beijing, kicking off a political high season that will continue with the opening of the country's top legislature later this week.

More than 2,000 members of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) are slated to discuss major political, economic and social issues in the world's most populous nation and second-largest economy during this year's session that will run till March 14.

At the opening meeting held in the Great Hall of the People, CPPCC National Committee Chairman Yu Zhengsheng will deliver a report on the work of the Standing Committee of the CPPCC National Committee over the past year.

Top Communist Party of China (CPC) and state leaders Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan and Zhang Gaoli attended the opening meeting.

The CPPCC is an organization in the patriotic united front of the Chinese people, an important organ for multiparty cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the CPC, and an important means of promoting socialist democracy in China's political activities.

The main functions of the CPPCC are to conduct political consultation, exercise democratic supervision and participate in the discussion and the handling of state affairs.