NPC To Hold Session On May 22, Says State Media

The 13th National People's Congress (NPC) will open its third annual session in Beijing on May 22, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported on Wednesday.

The meeting originally scheduled for March was postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak that saw the country go into a strict lockdown.

The decision to hold the session was made on Wednesday at a regular session of the NPC Standing Committee, the news agency said.

Conditions for holding the annual meeting of parliament have been met as the coronavirus epidemic situation has improved in the country, Xinhua quoted the top decision-making body of the country as saying.

With Mao Zedong as the meeting's chair, the NPC first convened in September 1954 in Beijing, where delegates passed the new constitution of the People's Republic of China, five years after its founding.

The legislature met almost every year since then, but paused during the decade of political turmoil ushered in by Mao's Cultural Revolution.

It re-convened in 1978, two years after Mao's death.

Since 1985, it has been held each March – and on March 5 specifically for the last two decades. (additional reporting by Reuters, AFP)