The National People's Congress yesterday began examining a draft law aimed at granting equal protection to state and private property.

The draft of the property law was submitted for deliberation to national legislators as they convened for their second plenary meeting of the NPC annual full session.

Enacting the property law is necessary to uphold the basic socialist economic system, to regulate the order of the socialist market economy and to safeguard the immediate interests of the people, said Wang Zhaoguo, vice chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, while reading an explanation on the law to nearly 3,000 law makers.

Wang said under the conditions of the socialist market economy, the country's economic pattern stipulated in the Constitution, all players have equal status in the market, enjoy the same rights, observe the same rules and bear the same responsibilities.

"If the different subjects of the market are not provided with equal protection, or if the methods used for settling disputes or the legal responsibilities to be borne are varied, it will not be possible to develop the socialist market economy, nor will it be possible to uphold and improve the basic economic system of socialism," he said.

As part of the draft civil code, the property law was submitted to the NPC Standing Committee for the first review in 2002 after nearly 10 years of preparation.

After an unprecedented seven readings, the standing committee decided last December to put it forward for voting at the Fifth Session of the Tenth NPC, believing that the draft "represents a crystallization of the wisdom of the collective."

China's legal experts believe that the draft reflects the country's socialist economic system.