The presidium of the ongoing Third Session of the Ninth National People's Congress (NPC) held its second meeting on the morning of March 11, which was presided over by Li Peng, an executive member of the presidium.

The meeting passed draft decisions on a government work report, implementation of 1999's plan for national economic and social development and 2000's plan for national economic and social development, implementation of 1999's budgets, and budgets for the new fiscal year.

The drafts will be distributed among the NPC delegations for examination and submitted to the full session for adoption. Today's meeting also passed two reports on the examination of the implementation of the development plan and budgets for 1999 and the plan and budgets for 2000 delivered by Chen Guangyi, chairman of the NPC Financial and Economic Committee, and Guo Zhenqian, a vice chairman of the committee, respectively.

The committee proposes the approval of the development plan and central budget for 2000 as they are deemed feasible and the approval of a report on the implementation of 1998's central and local budgets.

According to law, local budgets are to be adopted by local governments and approved by people's congresses of the same levels. Based on views of the deputies, the Financial and Economic Committee of the NPC asked the government to take effective measures to stimulate domestic demand, accelerate state-owned enterprises reform, vigorously develop rural economy and solve the problem of a slow rise in farmers' income, guard against financial risks, push ahead an ambitious drive to develop China's western areas, open wide to the outside world, implement a strategy to seek sustainable growth, and safeguard social stability.