CHINA’S top lawmaking body, the National People’s Congress (NPC), begins its annual session in Beijing today.

Some 3,000 delegates have descended upon the capital for the annual meeting, which will last until March 16, with hopes that the congress will pass a landmark bill protecting private property to curb arbitrary land grabs.

The NPC Standing Committee has solicited more than 10,000 pieces of opinion from the public and held hundreds of discussion panels during its unprecedented seven periods of deliberation on the draft property rights law. The law had its first reading in the legislature in 2002 as part of a draft civil code.

The NPC is also expected to pass a corporate income tax bill that would end preferential treatment for foreign-funded firms, and debate measures aimed at tackling rural poverty and pollution.

The draft corporate income tax law sets a unified income tax rate for domestic and foreign companies at 25 percent after years of criticism that tax policies are unfair to domestic companies.

China currently adopts dual income tax structures, under which domestic companies pay income tax at a nominal rate of 33 percent, while their foreign counterparts — who benefit from tax waivers and incentives designed to encourage investment in China — pay an average of 15 percent.

Chen Liangyu, who was removed from his post of secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of Communist Party of China (CPC) for grave disciplinary violations last year, will not attend the session, Jiang Enzhu, a spokesman of the top legislature, said yesterday.

Chen’s post of NPC deputy has not yet been terminated.

NPC deputies will hear and deliberate reports on the work of the government, the NPC Standing Committee, the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate.

(Xinhua)