China's top political advisory body holds video conference at annual session

BEIJING - China's top political advisory body on Monday held a video conference during its ongoing annual session.

Wang Yang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee, attended the meeting.

Twelve members of the CPPCC National Committee spoke at the meeting.

Noting the important role of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in fighting COVID-19, political advisor Huang Luqi called for building platforms for research on the combination of TCM and Western medicine for infectious disease prevention and control.

Zhou Hanmin suggested deepening reform, strengthening inter-regional consultation and cooperation, promoting integration of metropolitan areas, optimizing the development environment of major cities, and improving urban governance capacity.

Yan Xiaopei proposed the inclusion of international scientific and technological cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative into related national plans for the 2021-2025 period.

More work should be done to raise the level of concentration of key industries in the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and to put caps on the total coal consumption in those areas, said political advisor Liu Bingjiang.