Some members of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) are using the Internet as a new way to submit their proposals.

So far, the Fourth Session of the Ninth CPPCC National Committee has received 10 proposals via the Internet, 7.5 percent of the total.

Zhou Jinfeng, an economist who calls for stepping up security control on information transmitted via the Internet, submitted the first of these online proposals.

Observers say there would be more online proposals sent by political advisors in future, which is expected to help reduce the workload of typewriters who have to type as many as four million to five million Chinese characters during a session of the CPPCC National Committee. A total of 3,733 proposals were submitted to the last session of the Ninth CPPCC National Committee.

CPPCC National Committee members who want to send their proposals to the advisory body must do it by using its special CA electronic verification system or clicking the "Send Proposals” button of "www.cppcc.gov.cn", the website of the General Office of the CPPCC National Committee.

Members attending the session are free to use computers installed with the CA system at their hotels to send proposals.

(Xinhua 03/02/2001)