China's top legislature on Friday underscored efforts to provide the country's high-quality development with the backing and support of high-quality legislation in 2019.
The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) will move forward with formulating and revising urgently needed laws for deepening market-based reforms and expanding high-standard opening up, said the committee's chairman Li Zhanshu when delivering a work report at the second session of the 13th NPC.
Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders including Li Keqiang, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji, Han Zheng and Wang Qishan attended the plenary meeting at the Great Hall of the People.
It also needs to expedite legislation in the domains of public wellbeing, national security, intellectual property rights protection, social governance, and ecological advancement, enforce the principle of law-based taxation, and improve relevant laws on state institutions, according to Li.
This year's legislation plan includes deliberation on the Civil Code, formulation of Amendment XI to the Criminal Law and the laws on promotion of basic medical and health care, real estate tax, export control, community correction, integrated military-civilian development, guarantee for veterans, and administrative discipline.
Other items on the agenda include revision of the Securities Law, the Law on Officers on Active Service, the Military Service Law, the Law on the People's Armed Police Force, the Organic Law of the NPC, and the NPC procedural rules.
Research will be conducted for the drafting of laws on bio-security and Yangtze River conservation.
"All these tasks need to be expedited so that they are completed on schedule," Li said.
Summing up its work over the past year, he said the top legislature has got off to a good start under the leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core.
"The NPC Standing Committee made studying and implementing Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era the foremost political task," Li said, noting that the move aims to ensure a correct political orientation in NPC work.
Li also highlighted the amended Constitution, saying new progress has been made in studying, publicizing, implementing, and enforcing the Constitution, thereby demonstrating its legal standing, authority, and efficacy.
He went on to underscore legislation guarantees for the country's reform, opening up, and stability.
The NPC Standing Committee formulated eight laws, revised 47 laws, and adopted nine decisions on legal issues and other major issues.
Among them are the enactment of the E-commerce Law and the Law on the Prevention and Control of Soil Pollution, as well as the revision of the Company Law.
Li said the draft foreign investment law submitted to the on-going annual session for its third reading "is a full reflection of new ideas, approaches, and measures in reform and opening up, and will play an important role in lifting China toward a new stage of high-level opening up in the new era."
The foreign investment law, once adopted, will become a new and fundamental law for China's foreign investment, said Wang Chen, vice chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, when explaining the draft to deputies.
With unified provisions for the entry, promotion, protection, and management of foreign investment, it is an innovative improvement of China's foreign investment legal system, he noted.
(Source: Xinhua)