The session outlined plans to keep the steady and fast development of economy, narrow the gap between city and country, and adjust income distribution pattern.

The AP said that CPPCC National Committee Chairman Jia Qinglin said in a work report "2010 is a crucial year for China to respond to the impact of the global financial crisis and maintain steady and rapid economic development."

The annual session of China's legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC), which opens Friday, was expected to "give a full airing to hot-button issues such as soaring real estate prices in many Chinese cities," it said.

The Chinese government, which released a budget and work plan for the year, was expected to boost spending on education, pensions and medical care, continuing a push begun in the past decade to strengthen a tattered social safety net, it said.

The annual plenary sessions of the NPC and the CPPCC National Committee are known as China's "two sessions."

The AFP said China opened its annual parliamentary season Wednesday with a call from the Chinese leadership to keep up economic growth, maintain social stability and tackle a yawning urban-rural income gap.

The two gatherings were the Chinese leadership's chance to showcase its efforts to tackle the key challenges facing the country, and economic concerns looked set to top that list, it said.

Online, The Wall Street Journal Asia Edition said in an article the NPC's annual session would kick off Friday and this year's theme "naturally" was the economy.

In a talk with China's netizens last week, Premier Wen Jiabao said "while it is the government's responsibility to expand the 'pie' of national wealth, it is the government's conscience to distribute it in an adequate manner," the article said.

The Yonhap news agency said the Chinese government was speeding up its economic transformation after the global financial crisis because it realised it could not overcome future crises with its current economic structure dominated by cheap exports. China should keep a balanced development of service sectors and agriculture, and nurture the domestic market, it said. Economic transformation would be one of the hot topics of this year's NPC, it said.

Yonhap said, although the Chinese economy was gradually recovering, China faced some serious problems, such as the widening urban-rural gap.

China recently focused on migrant workers, eyeing the new generation of migrant workers born in the 1990s, and would discuss the making of the medium- and long-term layout for migrant workers.

The Wall Street Journal said, while the 2009 NPC was obsessed with attaining an 8 percent growth rate, the priority for this year's session was to ensure a more equitable distribution of national income.

A commentary on the website of Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao said that, from the perspective of China's economic development, it was in accordance with the needs of expanding China's consumption and transforming its economic growth mode for the country to gradually annul the dualistic structure between city and countryside, promote urbanization, scrap social welfare policies that discriminated against farmers, and ensure farmers' equal rights with urban dwellers.

One of the major reasons for the long-term inequality between city and countryside was China didn't have a big enough "pie" to ensure the fair distribution of interests, it said.

Canada's leading public policy magazine Policy Options said in a commentary that the Chinese leadership was paying more and more attention to the demands of the poor in remote regions.

From the list of the central government's financial expenditures, it could be found that the government would heavily invest on infrastructure development and maintenance, medical reforms, poverty reduction and education, it said.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao delivers a government work report during the opening
meeting of the Third Session of the 11th National People's Congress (NPC) at the
Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 5, 2010.

BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) -- China expects its economy to grow around 8 percent in 2010 from a year earlier, says a report delivered by Premier Wen Jiabao at the annual parliament session Friday.

Setting the 8-percent target mainly "aims at ensuring the quality of economic growth, focusing on transformation of economic growth pattern and adjustment of economic structure," says the report submitted to the National People's Congress (NPC), the country's top legislature.

The increase of consumer price index, a main gauge of inflation, will be held around 3 percent, says the report.

Although the development environment this year may be better than 2009, China "will still face a complicated situation," reads the report.

The year of 2010 will be a "crucial but complicated" year for China's economic development as the country will continue fighting against the global financial crisis while maintaining a stable and comparatively fast economic growth and accelerating transformation of growth pattern, according to the report.

Peter Trebitsch, a reporter from Hungarian News Agency Corporation, said he is sure that China will hit the growth target.

"If China sets 8-percent, it will be," Trebitsch said.

He noticed that instead of only focusing on expansion, China is giving more attention to quality of growth.

He noted, however, the key of economic development pattern transformation lies in implementation of policies in lower level governments.

"China is going to depend more and more on its own market, thus it has to take care of its people and domestic economy," said Trebitsch.

"Considering the circumstances that many countries are still suffering considerably, the target of 8 percent growth can leave room for Chinese people to improve their living standards," said Francois Jackman, counselor with Embassy of Barbados in China.

As the first country emerging from the global economic downturn, China's gross domestic product (GDP) rose 8.7 percent in 2009 from a year earlier, above the 8-percent target the government set at the beginning of last year.

China's quarterly economic growth accelerated as the government's economic stimulus package started to pay off. The national economy rose 6.2 percent in the first quarter last year, 7.9 percent in the second quarter, 9.1 percent in the third and 10.7 percent in the fourth.

China sets inflation target at 3% for 2010, leaves room for resource price reform

BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) -- China targets a rise of consumer price of around 3 percent this year, Premier Wen Jiabao said when delivering a government work at the parliament's annual session Friday.

He said the government's work still "fell considerably short of public expectations."

"The transformation of government functions is incomplete; there is too much government interference in the micro-economy, and public administration and services are relatively weak," Wen said.

He said efforts should be made to create conditions for the people to criticize and oversee the government.

"Let the news media fully play their oversight role," Wen said.

He said the government is to ensure the people live a happier life "with more dignity" and to make our society fairer and more harmonious.

He said efforts should be made to focus on transforming government functions, deepening reform of the administrative system and working hard to make the government devoted to service.

The broad measure of money supply, M2, which covers cash in circulation and all deposits, will rise around 17 percent year on year in 2010, slowdown from an increase of nearly 30 percent last year.

"Although both of these increases are less than the actual increases last year, they are still moderately easy policy goals, and they can satisfy reasonable financial demands of economic and social development," Wen said.

In addition, these goals are beneficial for managing inflation expectations and making financial support for economic development more sustainable, he said.

Wen pledged to improve credit structure to make sure loans benefit important areas and effectively alleviate the difficulties farmers and small businesses have in obtaining financing.

Wen also vowed to step up supervision of the loan use to make sure the money benefit the real economy, and control lending to industries that are energy-intensive, highly polluting or saddled with overcapacity.

Chinese financial institutions lent a record 9.59 trillion yuan of new loans last year to facilitate economic recovery from the global financial crisis. The unprecedented loans also triggered fears of inflation and fueling asset bubbles.

Editor: Zhang Pengfei | Source: Xinhua  http://english.cctv.com

China plans to create over 9 million new jobs in urban areas and keep the urban registered unemployment rate no higher than 4.6 percent, Wen said.

The employment situation this year will "still be serious," he said, while calling for relentless efforts to tackle the problems.

College graduates and rural migrant workers are the top two groups of people that will be given the most attention, and the government will offer more policy support and employment guidance with strengthened vocational training and improved employment services system, he said.

China created 11.02 million new jobs in urban areas in 2009 amid the lingering financial crisis, while the country's urban unemployment rate stood at 4.3 percent, with 9.21 million people being registered to be unemployed.