BEIJING, March 4 -- China's national legislators Wednesday elected a presidium and set the agenda for the legislature's annual session, which is to open Thursday.

A 172-member presidium was elected to take charge of the procedures of the third session of the 12th National People's Congress (NPC), which is scheduled to conclude on March 15, said Fu Ying, spokeswoman of the session, at a press conference Wednesday.

Li Jianguo was elected secretary-general of the session, she said.

National lawmakers will hear and deliberate the government work report and examine the report on the national economic and social development plan as well as the central and local budgets.

They will also hear and deliberate the work reports of the NPC Standing Committee, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

A draft amendment to the Legislation Law will also be tabled at the session and likely to be put for a vote, Fu said.

This year's session will take ten and half days, two days longer than the last one.

Besides the reason of reviewing the Legislation Law bill, extra time is given to lawmakers to discuss the budget report, Fu said.

The presidium is composed of senior officials of the Communist Party of China (CPC), non-Communist parties, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, personages without party affiliation, deputies from government agencies and people's organizations, and leading members of all the 35 delegations to the NPC session, including those from Hong Kong and Macao and the People's Liberation Army.

About 3,000 NPC deputies will attend the annual full session of the national legislature in Beijing.

The presidium held the first meeting after the preparatory meeting.