This was learned by the third meeting of the presidium of the Fourth Session of the Ninth National People's Congress (NPC), held yesterday.

The meeting passed a report on the treatment of these proposals by He Chunlin, deputy secretary-general of the session.

By 6 pm on March 10, the deadline for deputies to submit their proposals, the session had received 1,040 motions, including 25 from NPC deputy delegations and 1,015 from groups of at least 30 deputies.

The number of motions is the largest since the first session of the Ninth NPC, which was convened in 1998, He said in his report.

The motions mainly concern the 10th Five-Year Plan (2001-05), the major blueprint guiding the country's economic and social development in the next five years, he said.

Some two-fifths of the motions deal with economic matters such as the development of small and medium-sized firms, economic adjustment for China's pending accession into the World Trade Organization and the stock markets, according to Li Kebing, a member of staff with the session's secretariat.

The deputies also showed great interest in matters concerning environmental protection, medical reform, social security, rural affairs and education, Li added.

According to NPC working procedures, the motions have been sorted out by the session's secretariat.

A total of 268 of the 1,040 motions have been handed to NPC special committees to determine whether they should be listed on the agenda of the NPC or that of its standing committee.

The other 772 motions have been taken as suggestions or criticisms to be handled by the NPC Standing Committee's working departments, He said.

(China Daily 03/15/2001)