The laws include one amendment to the Constitution, 74 ordinary laws, eight legal interpretations and 29 decisions on legal issues, said NPC Law Committee vice-chairman Qiao Xiaoyang.

It is not yet known whether the outgoing legislature will pass any more new laws.

In China, the NPC and its Standing Committee is the top law-making body of the country, and laws, legal interpretations and decisions on legal issues it enacts have equal force and effect.

China has established seven major legal categories, including constitutional, civil and commercial, administrative, economic, social, criminal and litigation and non-litigation procedure laws, Qiao said, adding that a socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics is taking form.

In 1999, the second session of the 9th NPC passed an amendment to the Constitution, which incorporated into the Constitution the Deng Xiaoping Theory and the principle of governing the country according to law.

The legislature on economic development has been strengthened and as many as 26 relevant laws have been enacted over the past five years, including the Securities Law, the law on bankruptcy and the Governmental Procurement Law, said Chen Guangyi, chairman of 9th NPC Financial and Economic Committee.

Before and after China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), the 9th NPC Standing Committee has also revised a series of relevant laws on trade and intellectual property protection, which earned worldwide praise.

In view of the fundamental role of agriculture in China's economy, the 9th NPC has enacted and revised some laws on agriculture and rural affairs, said Gao Dezhan, chairman of the 9th NPC Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee.

The enacted law on rural land contracting in particular is of vital significance to protecting the fundamental interests of Chinese farmers and to promoting the development of the farming industry in China, Gao stressed.

A series of laws regarding the fundamental systems of the state, such as the law on supervision and the civil law, have been drafted and tabled to the 9th NPC Standing Committee for first round of deliberation, said Qiao.

In response to increasing terrorist acts across the world and rampant organized crime in some areas of the country, the 9th NPC Standing Committee has revised the Criminal Law and made interpretations on the law.

According to Qiao, the committee has also adopted various measures to improve the quality of law-making.

It has changed the number of rounds of deliberation on a draft law from two to three, he said, adding that the law on non-public education and the revised law on cultural relics protection have gone through four rounds of deliberation while the Securities Law and the Contract Law did five rounds.

By now, the NPC and its Standing Committee have passed more than 400 laws, legal interpretations and decisions on relevant legal issues.

China has set an objective of establishing a socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics by 2010, and such an objective "is certainly achievable," said Qiao.

(People's Daily February 21, 2003)