The main legislative tasks we plan to accomplish this year include enactment of the Law on Labor Contracts, the Employment Promotion Law, the Social Security Law, the Law on Mediation and Arbitration of Labor Disputes, the Law on Administrative Decrees, the Law on Response to Emergencies, the Antitrust Law, the Law on State-Owned Assets, the Law to Combat Illegal Drugs, the Law to Curb Illegal Activities, the Law on Urban and Rural Planning, and the Circular Economy Law, as well as revision to the Law on Scientific and Technological Progress, the Civil Procedure Law, the Criminal Procedure Law, the Law on Food Hygiene, the Law on Energy Conservation and the Law on Attorneys. All concerned organizations should take into consideration the requirements of the assigned tasks, their responsibilities, time constraints and organization in carrying out these legislative projects, promptly work out ways to address major issues and ensure that bills are submitted for deliberation on schedule. The Standing Committee will strengthen organizational leadership, give full play to the role of the NPC special committees, strictly control legislation quality and ensure smooth progress in legislative work. It will also urge concerned organizations to promptly draw up supporting regulations for existing laws that require them and try to ensure that they are drawn up when bills are being formulated or deliberated so that they can be introduced soon after a bill becomes law. Preparations should be made for the five-year plan for legislation of the next NPC.

Making sure that legislative work is carried out in a scientific and democratic manner is an internal requirement for raising legislation quality, so we must satisfy this requirement throughout the legislation process. In addition to soliciting written opinions on bills, we will conduct special research projects and hold forums and debates to directly solicit your opinions and those from all sectors of society. We will publish the entire texts of bills that have a bearing on the vital interests of the people in order to obtain a wide range of opinions. We will hold debates and hearings to carry out in-depth deliberations for highly technical or controversial bills. We will solicit opinions as extensively as possible so that the laws we enact fully express the common wishes of the people and thus ensure that they can be fully implemented.

China is now in a critical period for reform and development, in which China's economic system and social structure, the interests of different sectors of society and people's thinking and concepts are all changing profoundly. These unprecedented social changes provide very strong vitality for China's development, but they inevitably create a wide variety of conflicts and problems as well. We must always adhere to the correct political orientation, put people first, proceed from China's actual conditions and realities and follow the mass line in legislative work. We must have a good understanding of the objective laws governing reform, opening up and socialist modernization, obtain a deep understanding of the characteristics of the current stage of China's economic and social development, and give due consideration to the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people, the current common interests of the people and the special interests of different groups in society. We need to concentrate on passing legislation urgently needed to solve practical problems in daily life. We need to strike a balance between stability of the law and the need to adapt to changes and make sure that laws are both progressive and practicable so that the law can fully play its proper role in standardizing and guiding the functioning of society and guaranteeing success in building a harmonious socialist society.

II. We will implement the Oversight Law and make oversight work more effective.

The Standing Committee actively explored ways to strengthen and improve the oversight work of the NPC over the last four years, following an approach to oversight work that requires concentrating on the core tasks, identifying priorities and striving for substantive results. It listened to, deliberated and approved 44 special reports on the work of the central government, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate and investigated compliance with 21 laws. Through the oversight work of the NPC, solutions were found to some longstanding problems affecting the overall interests of the country, thus ensuring correct implementation of the laws, promoting government administration in accordance with the law, ensuring justice in the judicial system and safeguarding the lawful rights and interests of the people.

This year is the first year for the implementation of the Oversight Law. We will take the implementation of this law as a fulcrum for efforts to strengthen and improve oversight, standardize the forms of oversight to comply with the law and strictly follow the procedures defined in the law in order to exercise more effective oversight and raise the oversight work of the Standing Committee to a new level. We plan to investigate compliance with the law in three areas and listen to and deliberate nine special work reports during the year.

First, we will listen to and deliberate the State Council's reports on building a new socialist countryside, conserving energy and protecting the environment.

Second, we will listen to and deliberate the State Council's reports on reforming the urban and rural medical and health care systems, tightening oversight of food and drug safety and safeguarding the lawful rights and interests of workers, and investigate compliance with the Compulsory Education Law.

Third, we will listen to and deliberate reports by the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate on improving the systems for trial oversight and oversight over procuratorial work. We will monitor how well the opinions contained in the reports on compliance with the Law on Judges and the Law on Public Procurators have been implemented.

Fourth, we will listen to and deliberate the State Council's reports on work related to overseas Chinese and on protecting the lawful rights and interests of Taiwan compatriots investing in the mainland. We will monitor implementation of the opinions contained in the reports on compliance with the Law on the Autonomy of Ethnic Minority Areas, and monitor progress in formulating related supporting rules and regulations.

We will strengthen oversight of budget implementation and economic work. We will listen to and deliberate the State Council's report on the final accounts of the central government and corresponding auditing report for 2006, and report on standardizing government transfer payments. We will call on all concerned departments to balance their budgets, ensure that key expenditures are properly funded, properly handle surplus revenue over the budget target, standardize transfer payments and improve outstanding balance management for the national debt. We will support the auditing authorities in performing their duties in accordance with the law and urge concerned departments to address or correct any problem uncovered in the audit. We will listen to and deliberate the State Council's report on the implementation of the plan for economic and social development and increase monitoring and analysis of the performance of the economy to promote sound and fast development of the Chinese economy.

In accordance with related provisions of the Oversight Law, we will improve the filing and inspection of administrative regulations, local regulations, legal interpretation documents and other regulatory documents. We will conduct focused inspections of regulatory documents on our own initiative to effectively safeguard the uniformity and authority of the country's legal system. We will improve handling of people's petitions delivered via letters and visits. We will carry out an overall analysis of such petitions and urge the relevant offices to find effective solutions to serious problems that are reflected in many petitions and evoke a strong reaction from the people in order to resolve conflicts at the local level in the place where they arise.

The Standing Committee will be more conscientious in subjecting itself to oversight by you and the people. It will use a variety of means, including printed bulletins, press conferences, interviews and the Internet, to inform you and the public about its work. The information released will include the annual plan for oversight work, reports on compliance with the laws and comments on those reports, as well as work reports delivered to the Standing Committee, the Committee's comments on those work reports and the responses to its comments from the central government, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate. The Standing Committee will carefully listen to your and other people's comments and suggestions concerning its work to improve its performance under this oversight.

The most fundamental requirement for successful implementation of the Law on Oversight and effective oversight of people's congresses is to organically combine the leadership of the Party, the people's position as the masters of the country and the running of the government according to the rule of law.