The Fourth Session of the 11th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country's top political advisory body, opened in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing Thursday.

More than 2,000 CPPCC National Committee members, from across the country, will discuss major issues concerning the nation's development during the annual session scheduled to conclude on March 13.

At the opening meeting started at 3 p.m., CPPCC National Committee Chairman Jia Qinglin delivered a report on the work of the CPPCC National Committee's Standing Committee over the past year.

"Over the past year, the CPPCC...made important contributions to responding to a variety of risks and challenges, promoting sound and rapid economic and social development, scientifically formulating the Twelfth Five-Year Plan," Jia said.

He said the CPPCC also made important contributions to advancing peaceful development of relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and expanding China's friendly foreign contacts.

Top Communist Party of China (CPC) and state leaders Hu Jintao, Wu Bangguo, Wen Jiabao, Li Changchun, Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, He Guoqiang and Zhou Yongkang were present at the opening meeting.

Founded in 1949, the CPPCC consists of elite members of the Chinese society who are willing to serve the think tank for the government and for the country's legislative and judicial organs.

As an open forum where the ruling CPC, non-Communist parties and people without party affiliation discuss state affairs freely and on an equal footing, the CPPCC has been the manifestation of China's socialist democracy.

(Xinhua News Agency March 3, 2011)