China's national legislature holds closing meeting of annual session

The closing meeting of the fifth session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) is held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 11, 2022. Leaders of the Communist Party of China and the state Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji, Han Zheng and Wang Qishan attended the meeting, and Li Zhanshu presided over the closing meeting and delivered a speech. (Xinhua/Huang Jingwen)

BEIJING, March 11 (Xinhua) --The 13th National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, concluded its fifth session Friday.

Chinese leaders Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji, Han Zheng and Wang Qishan attended the closing meeting of the session at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Li Zhanshu, an executive chairperson of the presidium for the session, presided over the meeting attended by 2,758 NPC deputies.

Lawmakers voted to adopt a decision on amending the Organic Law of the Local People's Congresses and Local People's Governments.

President Xi Jinping signed a presidential order to promulgate the decision.

The meeting adopted a decision on the quota and election of deputies to the 14th NPC, the method for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) to elect its deputies to the 14th NPC, as well as the method for the Macao SAR. According to the decision, the election of deputies shall be completed in January 2023.

Lawmakers approved the government work report and the work reports of the NPC Standing Committee, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

They approved a report on the implementation of the 2021 plan for national economic and social development and on the draft plan for 2022, as well as the 2022 plan.

They also approved a report on the execution of the central and local budgets for 2021 and on the draft central and local budgets for 2022, and approved the central budget for 2022.

Addressing the meeting, Li Zhanshu said that the annual session has successfully completed its agenda.

He lauded the achievements made by the 13th NPC and its standing committee, as well as the contributions made by NPC deputies.

Li called for efforts to study and implement Xi's important thoughts on upholding and improving the people's congress system, to uphold the overall leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), and to give full play to the role of people's congress system as an important institution for practicing the whole-process people's democracy.

He also called for concrete actions to pave the way for the 20th CPC National Congress.