国内英语新闻:Top legislature's annual work acknowledged by lawmakers

BEIJING, Feb. 25 (Xinhua) -- Members of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) and some NPC deputies on Thursday reviewed the draft report of the top legislature's work in 2015.

Lawmakers agreed that the NPC Standing Committee made notable progress in exercising its duty of legislation and supervision, said a statement issued after the panel discussions at the ongoing bi-monthly legislative session.

Zhang Dejiang, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, joined his fellow lawmakers in one of the panel meetings.

The top legislature upheld the Communist Party's leadership, followed the correct direction and contributed to the implementation of Party guidelines and decisions, the statement said.

The number of legislation adopted last year has increased and the efficiency of reading improved, it said.

Great efforts were made to improve and supervise the implementation of the Constitution. Chairman and vice chairpersons of the NPC Standing Committee personally led programs to supervise the implementation of laws while the mechanisms of supervising the administration were streamlined.

The top legislature also allocated more resources to help local legislatures improve their work, especially those of counties and townships.

Lawmakers suggested that in 2016 the top legislature should contribute to realizing the new development concepts, which are innovation, coordination, green development, opening up and sharing, the statement said.

The report will be submitted to the annual NPC session in March.

Also on Thursday, a meeting of the chairman and vice chairpersons was held to hear reports on the draft agenda as well as the draft list of presidium and secretary-general of the annual NPC session, according to a statement released after the meeting.

Attendees also heard a report on legislators' suggestions of revising the draft law on deep seafloor resource exploration which was submitted to the ongoing bimonthly session of the NPC Standing Committee for a second reading.