The First Session of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country's top political advisory body, started in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Sunday afternoon. [Xinhua]

The First Session of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country's top political advisory body, started in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Sunday afternoon.

The session will last nine days, compared with ten days last year.

Nearly 2,200 CPPCC national political advisors, from across the country, will discuss major issues concerning the country's development during the annual session.

They are also expected to elect the new leadership of the CPPCC National Committee.

CPPCC National Committee Chairman Jia Qinglin delivered a report on the work of the CPPCC National Committee's Standing Committee over the past five years at the opening meeting.

Jia said China had overcome "severe challenges" and made "extraordinary achievements" in reform, opening up and socialist modernization over the past five years, and the CPPCC had carried on, made innovations in, and consolidated and developed its cause.

The CPPCC fully played its role in coordinating relations, pooling strengths, making suggestions and proposals to the central leadership, and serving the overall interests of the country, Jia said.

He said the CPPCC had made important contributions to the country's development in various fields such as scientific development, social stability, China's reunification and foreign exchanges.

Top Communist Party of China (CPC) and state leaders Hu Jintao, Xi Jinping, Wu Bangguo, Wen Jiabao, Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan and Zhang Gaoli attended the opening meeting.

Political advisors will have their agenda filled over the coming nine days, as they will discuss a report on government work, to be delivered by Premier Wen Jiabao, a plan on the restructuring of central departments under the State Council, and reports on the work of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate, according to Lyu Xinhua, spokesman for the session.