China's top legislature started a standing committee session in Beijing on Monday.
During the session, which is scheduled to run till Thursday, deputies to the 14th National People's Congress (NPC) will continue to work on draft revisions to the Prison Law and begin reviewing revisions to several other laws.
Zhao Leji, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, presided over the session's first plenary meeting on Monday.
The NPC Standing Committee on Monday advanced a draft revision to the Prison Law for a third reading, moving a step closer to adopting changes designed to strengthen inmate rehabilitation and facilitate reintegration into society. The draft revision aims to promote professional, science-based and collaborative approaches to inmate rehabilitation and prison education.
A draft law on social assistance was submitted to the session for its third reading. The draft law aims at strengthening basic living support and building a stronger safety net for vulnerable groups. It calls for optimizing procedures based on practical needs and improving accessibility and convenience for the public.
A draft healthcare security law, which proposes improving the maternity insurance system and expanding its coverage, is under a second deliberation at the session.
Draft revisions to the Law on State-Owned Assets of Enterprises, the Agriculture Law, the National Defense Mobilization Law, and the Water Law were submitted for initial reviews on Monday.
Reports concerning environmental protection, state-owned assets management, and lawmakers' qualifications, as well as proposals regarding appointments or removals, were also reviewed.
China's top legislature starts standing committee session
Chinese mainland shares edged slightly higher on Monday, with the Shanghai Composite Index and Shenzhen Component Index closing up despite impacts from the war in the Middle East, according to Timothy Pope, a market analyst for China Global Television Network (CGTN).
The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.16 percent to 4,086.34 points, while the Shenzhen Component Index closed 0.37 percent higher at 14,995.75 points. The ChiNext Index, tracking China's Nasdaq-style board of growth enterprises, lost 0.52 percent to close at 3,648.79 points.
"The Chinese mainland markets edged a little bit higher today. The feeling was that investors are looking for a bit of a bright side. There's a bit more risk appetite around, but investors are also trying to balance that, looking to avoid too much exposure to areas that are vulnerable to the current geopolitical winds. The Shanghai Composite Index added a bit more than 0.1 percent today, so the gains were fairly modest. Investors were happy to see the industrial profit data for March showing the quickest growth in profits in six months, but there are a couple of caveats to that. First is that the supply side of the economy is still looking a lot stronger than the demand side, and second, we probably aren't seeing the impact of the Iran war in the data yet. That's going to be a lot more evident over the next couple of weeks as we see the data come out for April and then, further on into the future, for May as well," said Pope.
"Still today industrial stocks didn't actually have a bad day. Broadly, as a sector, they were down very slightly. But the real energy was coming from tech stocks. They were supporting the vast majority of the gains this session. Optimism over AI spending, which we're seeing really, really grow in China and Asia, pushed investors towards semiconductor stocks. We saw an index tracking those up about 6 percent to a three-month high. And the STAR 50 index which is very heavy with AI-related companies, was also up at a three-month high today, adding about 3.8 percent. Looking ahead to the rest of what is actually going to be a shorter trading week on the Chinese mainland, the markets are closed on Friday for the Labor Day holiday and will reopen on May 6, but until then investors are going to be turning their attention to a meeting of China's politburo this week. The April politburo meeting is usually one which focuses on the economy, and investors are going to be very keen to hear what comes out of those discussions, particularly anything on managing the impact of the Iran war," he said.
Chinese mainland shares edge higher on industrial profit data, tech optimism
