China's nominal parliament on Friday endorsed policies designed to bolster the economy against the global recession and approved an annual budget that included another large hike in military spending.
Reports on the budget and economic performance were approved by a large majority of the nearly 3,000 members of the National People's Congress (NPC), who took part in rapid electronic voting at the end of the parliament's nine-day annual session, dpa reported.
Premier Wen Jiabao' s economic report included a rallying call to tackle the "arduous and formidable" tasks of reinvigorating China's faltering economic growth this year.
The expansion of domestic consumption, "especially individual consumption," will be crucial to the efforts to rebalance the economy, Wen told the NPC, which endorses policies and legislation drafted by the ruling Communist Party.
The government believes it can still achieve its target for GDP growth by implementing a 4-trillion-yuan (586 billion dollars) economic stimulus package, which was announced in November, Wen's report said.
It will launch a "massive plan to adjust and reinvigorate industries" focussing on cars, steel, shipbuilding, petrochemicals information technology and other key industries, it said.
The annual budget report included another 14.9-per-cent jump in military spending this year, following several years of double-digit rises.