China's ongoing NPC and CPPCC annual sessions have been viewed by the international community as a fresh start to further reforms in the world's second biggest economy.

The annual sessions of the 12th National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, and the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country's political advisory body, are under way in Beijing.

The Chinese economy, which successfully handled the global financial crisis, has become one of the major engines for global economic growth.

Cora Francisca Jungbluth, project manager of Bertelsmann Foundation, said China's reforms and opening up in the past 30 years had laid a solid foundation for its economic takeoff and China was now standing at a crucial juncture.

Jean-Marie Le Guen, chairman of the France-China Friendship Group in France's National Assembly and deputy mayor of Paris, said China had realized catch-up growth in the past 30 years and was experiencing "exciting" times.

Experts from the United States, Russia, Indonesia, Cuba and Thailand also agreed the ongoing political sessions marked a new starting point for China, which had accumulated rich experience and made remarkable achievements during its reform and opening-up drive over the past 30 years, to sustain development.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) has pledged to increase the achievements of reform and development, benefiting all people, and to consolidate popular support for deepening reform.

China's new leadership is also attaching more importance to improving people's quality of life.

Yakov Berger, senior analyst at the Institute of Far-Eastern Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, said the newly elected CPC leadership had shown unwavering commitment to pushing forward the reforms.

Through reforms, China would achieve its goals of building a moderately prosperous society and realizing national rejuvenation, or the "Chinese Dream" put forth by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, Berger said.

Alejandro Simonoff, an international studies expert at the Argentine National University of La Plata, said China knew well where to go next.

Rosendo Fraga, director of the New Majority Research Center, said China stood firm in advancing its reform and opening-up drive and he believed China's economic development would continue to be vigorous.

Jose Luis Robaina, a renowned Cuban expert on China, also said the Chinese leadership had accumulated experience in dealing with major economic and political issues over the years, adding he had full confidence in China's new leaders.

Meanwhile, overseas media, which have given extensive coverage to the two sessions, not only hailed the remarkable achievements China had made but also pointed out the tough challenges confronting the world's second largest economy.

The challenges include how to guarantee social justice and fairness to achieve steady economic and social development; how to transform from a investment-driven economic growth pattern to a consumption-driven one; how to encourage the development of the private sector; how to push forward building of the legal system; how to effectively curb corruption; how to build a well-structured, clean, efficient and service-oriented government and how to properly address problems with neighboring countries.

(Xinhua News Agency March 11, 2013)