ACWF Chairwoman Gu Xiulian delivers a speech at the opening ceremony.

The Tenth National Women's Congress which is expected to draw a blueprint for the development of Chinese women in the coming five years, began in Beijing on Tuesday morning.

President Hu Jintao and other top state leaders Wu Bangguo, Jia Qinglin, Li Changchun, Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, He Guoqiang and Zhou Yongkang attended the opening ceremony at the Great Hall of the People.

Premier Wen Jiabao is in Russia for a visit. (To learn more about China's top leadership, please click here.)

"Currently, women account for 45.4 percent of China's total employed population," said All-China Women's Federation (ACWF) Deputy-Chairwoman Huang Qingyi, who delivered a work report on behalf of the ninth ACWF Executive Committee.

Huang said there were nearly 700,000 women models working in various circles who had greatly inspired people.

Exemplar women included Ren Changxia, a late policewoman in central Henan Province who devoted herself to her police career and died of fatigue at 40, and Song Yushui, a judge in a Beijing district court who has long been engaged in handling cases involving economic and intellectual property rights issues.

Chinese women also played larger role in the political sector. Female deputies comprised 21.33 percent of the National People's Congress (NPC), up 1.09 percentage points from the previous congress, and women make up 17.7 percent of the 11th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), up 1 percentage point.