The Third Plenary Session of the 13th Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Shanghai Committee kicked off yesterday with an opening ceremony at the World Expo Center.

This marks the start of this year’s annual Two Sessions of the city’s top political advisory body and legislative body. Hundreds of members of the CPPCC Shanghai Committeeattended the ceremony, joined by foreign representatives from consulates and other organizations.

This session of the CPPCC is scheduled to conclude on Saturday. Over the next four days, local CPPCC members will discuss city affairs and make their proposals.

During the ceremony, Dong Yunhu, chairman of the committee, delivered a report which reviewed the major accomplishments of the 13th CPPCC Shanghai Committee’s Standing Committee last year and assigned new tasks for this year.

“This year is the final year to accomplish the aim of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and the final year in the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) period,” Dong said. “It’s also the final year for Shanghai to build itself into the ‘four centers’ — international centers of economy, trade, finance and shipping — and establish the basic framework for the science and technology innovation center. It’s also a critical year to comprehensively promote the implementation of three new major tasks.”

According to the work report, this year local political advisers will propose innovative measures and contribute to advance the national strategies more effectively in terms of full implementation of the three new tasks — the Lingang Special Area of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, Shanghai Stock Exchange STAR Market and Yangtze River Delta integration — and continue the success of holding the China International Import Expo.

“On strengthening the ‘four functions’ in allocating global resources, fostering science and technology innovation, leveraging high-end industries and serving as a portal for opening-up, we should carry out deliberative investigations and research on key issues, weak points and shortcomings, and actively contribute proposals to continuously improve the city’s energy level and core competitiveness,” Dong said.

“On the city’s commitment to serving the people, we should contribute wisdom and efforts to address problems impacting people’s livelihood, promote the rural revitalization, and create high-quality life,” he added.

The CPPCC members will also draw the blueprint for the city’s future development with a broad vision and foresightedness when compiling the 14th Five-Year-Plan (2020-2025).

Huang Zhen, committee vice chairman, addressed a report about work on proposals. By end-2019, local CPPCC members had filed 1,001 proposals, 929 of which have been handled, with 751 being accepted by government departments.