Ma Biao, vice chairman of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, was elected chairman on Saturday at the first session of the eleventh Regional People's Congress of Guangxi, the local legislative body.

Ma, born in August 1954, was a native of Guangxi, and joined the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1985.

He became a worker in a steel plant in Liuzhou of Guangxi in 1972, and then pursued a bachelor degree in the Central University of Nationalities from 1978 to 1982, majoring in political economics. He had worked in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences before 1994.

Ma had served as vice and acting chairman of Guangxi since last December.

He is an alternate member of the 17th CPC Central Committee.

(Xinhua News Agency January 28, 2008)