At 9:00, Li Peng, executive chairman of the session and an executive member of the session presidium, announced the opening of the session, and invited Premier Zhu Rongji to deliver a report of the draft outline of the country's 10th Five-Year Plan for economic and social development.

China's economic growth rate is set at 7 percent for the next five years since 2001, said Premier Zhu Rongji.

The new rate is slightly lower than the 8.3 percent average annual growth rate in the past five years.

"Though the new target is slightly lower than the actual growth rate of the ninth Five-Year Plan (1996-2000) period, the new target is still fairly high", said Premier Zhu during his report.

He said this would help people focus on restructuring and improving economic returns, and also help prevent overheating of the economy and poor quality or redundant construction.

According to the tenth Five-Year Plan outline, by 2005, China's GDP will reach 1.25 trillion yuan, or 9,400 yuan per capita, and the per capita disposable income of urban residents and the per capita net income of rural dwellers will both go up by around five percent annually.

A total of 2,870 deputies to the NPC attended today's meeting. More than 2,000 members of the Ninth National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, who are attending the committee's fourth session, are present at the meeting as observers, together with a number of central and local government and Party officials.

(CIIC 03/05/2001)