All this, together with the enacting of the Law on Property Rights and the Law on Oversight, is a measure of the NPC's work with Wu at the helm.

Observers see the Law on Property Rights, designed to protect private and State-owned property, as the biggest step taken during Wu's tenure as top lawmaker.

Industry expert

China's booming market economy has benefited from a number of laws, including the Law on Property Rights, Law on Corporate Income Tax, Antitrust Law and Banking Oversight and Management Law and Securities Law.

Analysts credit Wu's efforts, saying his rich experience in economic work and industrial development formed his views on the framework for the socialist market economy.

Wu, a native of Feidong, Anhui province, came up through the ranks in Shanghai, where he became a member of the Standing Committee of the Shanghai municipal committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1983 and Party chief in 1991.

Wu was elected a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee in 1992 and moved to work in Beijing two years later. He became vice-premier in 1995.

During the following eight years, Wu took charge of economic work and trade, transportation and communications, energy, information industry and social security.

Wu also focused on legislation to address social problems. In 2007 alone, the NPC enacted the Labor Contract Law, Employment Promotion Law and Law on the Mediation and Arbitration of Labor Disputes. The body also revised the Law on Compulsory Education and Law on the Protection of Minors.

Wu, in his plain words, interpreted this work as "following the mass line".