The new National Committee of the China's top advisory body, is sure to have a still wider representation and will be more magnanimous with its brand-new line-up, as a growing number of promising business people from both state-owned and private sectors have entered China's top political arena.
According to the General Office of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, there would be 33 leaders from major state-owned enterprises and 65 representatives from China's fledgling private sector and other nonpublic-owned firms in the 10th CPPCC National Committee, which is due to meet beginning Monday in Beijing, the national capital.
Upon his arrival in the Chinese capital of Beijing, Xu Guanju, a prestigious private entrepreneur from east China's Zhejiang province, urged all his fellow business people to contribute more and concern ourselves still more to China's future by "sharing more worries with the state."
Xu, the president of a large chemical firm named the Chuanhua Group, was elected in January vice-chairman of the CPPCC provincial committee of Zhejiang, a thriving eastern province where private economic sectors have been mushrooming, prospering and expanding dramatically since the late 1970s of the last century, when the country launched its ambitious policies of reform and opening to the outside world.
As a member of the CPPCC National Committee, "I will not speak only on behalf of us individual business people but the prosperity of the entire nation," said the 43-year billionaire, who had resumed the chairmanship of the provincial federation of industry and commerce last year.
Meanwhile, according to official sources, the provincial-level CPPCC committees of Guizhou province and Chongqing municipality, both in southwestern China, have also each appointed a private entrepreneur as committee vice-chairman.
After explaining that his successful experience indicates the priority the leading Communist Party of China (CPC) has given to the role of the private sector, Xu said he would submit to the imminent meetings two proposals on the topic of private economy.
In his proposals, Xu urged leaders of private firms to heighten the sense of law, accountability and credibility among themselves so that they, too, were truly conscious and responsible "builders of socialism with Chinese characteristics" in response to the Communist Party's call by the 16th CPC Congress convened in mid November last year.
(Xinhua News Agency March 3, 2003)
