NPC starts annual session

China opened its annual parliamentary session on Saturday, unveiling a five-year development blueprint and striving to handle pressing economic issues including inflation.

Nearly 3,000 National People's Congress (NPC) deputies from across the country, and more than 2,000 members of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the top political advisory body, are present in the Great Hall of the People at the opening meeting of the Fourth Session of the 11th NPC.

The world is watching how China copes with the current complex situation and seizes the strategic opportunity for its development in 2011, the start of its 12th Five-Year Plan and the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

At the meeting, Premier Wen Jiabao delivers a report of government work. China will increase its gross domestic product (GDP) by around 8 percent this year, further optimize the economic structure, keep the consumer price index (CPI) increase around 4 percent, create more than nine million jobs in urban area and keep the registered urban unemployment rate at 4.6 percent or lower, according to the report.

Editor: Huan CAO, Zhang Xiao

Source: CCTV