China's hundreds of millions of rural migrant workers will have their own representatives in the national parliament if a draft resolution on lawmaker election for next year's National People's Congress (NPC) is approved by legislators at the ongoing 10th NPC annual session.

The draft resolution on deputy election for the 11th NPC was submitted to lawmakers for deliberation yesterday, stipulating that provinces and municipalities with a large population of rural migrant workers should have an NPC deputy quota for them.

"China's migrant laborer population has become larger and is growing into one of the mainstays of the country's working force," said Sheng Huaren, vice-chairman of the NPC Standing Committee when making an explanation on the draft resolution to about 3,000 legislators.

"They should have a number of lawmakers to represent their rights and interests."

Sources with the NPC Standing Committee said no deputy was elected as a migrant worker in the current NPC or previous terms.

The draft resolution also proposed farmers and industrial workers become lawmakers, saying that numbers from these groups had dropped in recent years.

"NPC deputies must have wide representation which is a fundamental requirement of the NPC system and an aspect of the socialist democracy," Sheng said.

China has about 200 million migrant workers, of which more than 120 million work in cities and the remainder work in towns. Official figures show 13 million farmers will become migrant workers each year if China reaches the urbanization target of 56 percent.

Sun Heng, a migrant from central Henan Province, said the draft resolution is "good news" to migrant workers. Sun funded a band of migrant workers in Beijing in 2002, which performs exclusively for the migrant community.

Hong Kong, Macao issues

The draft methods for electing national legislators from China's Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions (SAR) were submitted yesterday to the session for examination.

Hong Kong will have 36 members in the 11th NPC, and Macao will have 12 members. The figures are the same as those in the current tenth NPC, according to the drafts.

"The draft methods have drawn experience from previous elections and will simplify election procedures," said Sheng.

He noted that preliminary elections will not be held this time.

An electoral conference comprising more than 1,300 people will be formed in Hong Kong, who will have extensive representation of local residents of various social sectors. Similarly, a 300-person electoral conference will be set up in Macao for selecting the region's 11th NPC deputies.

The elections will be held at the end of this year and early next year.

Xinhua

(China Daily 03/09/2007 page7)