BEIJING : The Next Five Years

China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) meets beginning Monday to endorse a new Five-Year Plan (1991-1995) that has already been approved by the Communist Party Central Committee. The plan reportedly includes further cautious steps toward decentralized economic decision-making, gradual elimination of subsidies and a more market-oriented economy.

While the NPC rarely rejects proposals from the party nor introduces its own legislation, an exception may occur during an expected vote on the controversial Three Gorges Dam, a mammoth flood-control and hydroelectric project sidelined once already in 1989 by opposition from economists and environmentalists.