The Fourth Session of the 11th National People's Congress (NPC)， China's parliament, opens at 9 a.m. Saturday in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Premier Wen Jiabao delivers a report on the work of the government at the opening meeting chaired by NPC Standing Committee Chairman Wu Bangguo.

This webpage will be updated continuously. Following are the highlights of Wen's report:

Global issues

"China will play a constructive role in helping resolve hot issues and global problems."

Income

"Readjusting income distribution is a pressing task at present, and an endeavor to be pursued in a longer term."

Price stability

"Recently, prices have risen fairly quickly and inflation expectations have increased. This problem concerns the people's well-being, bears on overall interests and affects social stability. We must, therefore, make it our top priority in macroeconomic control to keep overall price levels stable. We need to make the most of favourable conditions, such as an ample supply of manufactured goods and our abundant grain reserves and considerable foreign exchange reserves, endeavor to overcome the adverse effects of imported and structural inflation, cushion the upward pressure for costs of factors of production, and correctly guide market expectations to resolutely curb prices."

Boosting domestic demand

"Expanding domestic demand is a long-term strategic principle and basic standpoint of China's economic development as well as a fundamental means and an internal requirement for promoting balanced economic development. We will actively boost consumer demand. We will continue to increase government spending used to help expand consumption, and increase subsidies to low-income urban residents and farmers."

Property prices

"We will further implement and improve policies for regulating the real estate market and firmly curb the excessively rapid rise of housing prices in some cities."

Global challenges

"This year, our country still faces an extremely complex situation for development. The world economy will continue to recover slowly, but the foundation for recovery is not solid. Economic growth in developed economies is weak, their unemployment rates are and will remain high, and some countries are still under the threat of their sovereign debt crises.

Major developed economies have further eased monetary policies, global liquidity has increased greatly, the prices of major commodities and the exchange rates of major currencies have become more volatile in the international market, asset bubbles and inflationary pressure have grown in emerging markets, protectionism continues to heat up, competition in the international market is becoming more intense, and there are still many unstable and uncertain factors."

Economic restructuring

"China's economy needs to be quickly put on the path of endogenous growth driven by innovation."

The country will quicken the establishment of a modern industrial system and give impetus to industrial transformation and upgrading, he said。

"We will actively yet prudently move forward with urbanization, "