The first session of the 12th National People's Congress held its annual meeting in March 2013 at the

Great Hall of the People The Great Hall of the People is a state building situated to the west of Tiananmen Square in Beijing. It is used for legislative and ceremonial activities by the government of the People's Republic of China. The People's Great Hall functions as ...

Beijing, China Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

. The session opened 5 March and concluded on 16 March, 2013 This was the Session in which major state positions were elected.

The session

Government Work Report

Below are the key points of the country's achievements in the past five years, from

Premier Premier is a title for the head of government in central governments, state governments and local governments of some countries. A second in command to a premier is designated as a deputy premier. A premier will normally be a head of govern ...

Wen Jiabao Wen Jiabao ( zh, s=温家宝, p=Wēn Jiābǎo; born 15 September 1942) is a Chinese retired politician who served as the 6th premier of China from 2003 to 2013. In his capacity as head of government, Wen was regarded as the leading figure behin ...

's work report: *Effectively countered the severe impact of the

2008 financial crisis The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...

and maintained steady and fast

economic development In economics, economic development (or economic and social development) is the process by which the economic well-being and quality of life of a nation, region, local community, or an individual are improved according to targeted goals and object ...

. *China's

GDP Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the total market value of all the final goods and services produced and rendered in a specific time period by a country or countries. GDP is often used to measure the economic performance o ...

increased from 26.6 trillion yuan to 51.9 trillion yuan, and now ranks second in the world. *

Government revenue Government revenue or national revenue is money received by a government from Tax revenue, taxes and Non-tax revenue, non-tax sources to enable it, assuming full resource employment, to undertake non-inflationary public expenditure. Government re ...

went up from 5.1 trillion yuan to 11.7 trillion yuan. *A total of 58.7 million urban jobs were created. *The

per capita ''Per capita'' is a Latin phrase literally meaning "by heads" or "for each head", and idiomatically used to mean "per person". Social statistics The term is used in a wide variety of social science, social sciences and statistical research conte ...

disposable income Disposable income is total personal income minus current taxes on income. In national accounting, personal income minus personal current taxes equals disposable personal income or household disposable income. Subtracting personal outlays ( ...

of urban residents rose by an annual average of 8.8%, and the per capita net income of rural residents rose by 9.9%. *

Rice production in China Rice production in China is the amount of rice planted, grown, and harvested for consumption in the mainland of China. It is an important part of the national economy, where it is the world's largest producer of rice, making up 30% of global ric ...

increased for the ninth consecutive year in 2012. *Progress was made in key areas of

reform Reform refers to the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The modern usage of the word emerged in the late 18th century and is believed to have originated from Christopher Wyvill's Association movement, which ...

; and the

open economy An open economy refers to an economy in which both domestic and international entities participate in the trade of goods and services. This type of economy allows for the exchange of products, including technology transfers and managerial experti ...

reached a new stage of development. *Made China more innovative. Breakthroughs were made in developing

human spaceflight Human spaceflight (also referred to as manned spaceflight or crewed spaceflight) is spaceflight with a crew or passengers aboard a spacecraft, often with the spacecraft being operated directly by the onboard human crew. Spacecraft can also be ...

and the lunar exploration program, building a crewed deep-sea submersible, launching the

Beidou Navigation Satellite System The BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS; ) is a satellite-based radio navigation system owned and operated by the China National Space Administration. It provides geolocation and time information to a BDS receiver anywhere on or near the ...

, developing

supercomputers A supercomputer is a type of computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instru ...

and building high-speed railways. China's first

aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and hangar facilities for supporting, arming, deploying and recovering carrier-based aircraft, shipborne aircraft. Typically it is the ...

, the Liaoning, was commissioned. *Successfully hosted the Games of the XXIX Olympiad and the XIII Paralympic Games in Beijing and the

World Expo A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition, is a large global exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specific site for a perio ...

in Shanghai. *Successfully mitigated the impact of the massive Wenchuan earthquake, the strong Yushu earthquake, the huge Zhugqu mudslide and other

natural disasters A natural disaster is the very harmful impact on a society or community brought by natural phenomenon or Hazard#Natural hazard, hazard. Some examples of natural hazards include avalanches, droughts, earthquakes, floods, heat waves, landslides ...

and carried out post-disaster recovery and

reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology *Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *''Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Union ...

. *China's

productive forces Productive forces, productive powers, or forces of production ( German: ''Produktivkräfte'') is a central idea in Marxism and historical materialism. In Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' own critique of political economy, it refers to the combin ...

and overall national strength, its

living standards Standard of living is the level of income, comforts and services available to an individual, community or society. A contributing factor to an individual's quality of life, standard of living is generally concerned with objective metrics outside ...

and

social security Welfare spending is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifically to social insurance ...

, and its international status and influence all improved significantly. *Successfully completed the Eleventh Five-Year Plan and got off to a good start in implementing the Twelfth Five-Year Plan. *Made significant socialist economic,

political Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...

cultural Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...

social Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives fro ...

, and ecological progress, and wrote a new chapter in building

socialism with Chinese characteristics Socialism with Chinese characteristics (; ) is a set of political theories and policies of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that are seen by their proponents as representing Marxism adapted to Chinese circumstances. The term was first establ ...

Voting results

State positions

Resolutions

Events

*Hangzhou mayor Shao Zhanwei died during the congress.

References

External links

NPC Official Website
{{National People's Congress National People's Congresses 2013 in Beijing