(ZHU XIANG)

Zhang Quanshou, a national lawmaker from Henan Province, was a cynosure during this year's full session of the National People's Congress (NPC). As founder of China's first and now largest agency for migrant workers, he suggested higher salaries and more pro-worker policies to ease ongoing labor shortages in the Pearl River Delta area in south China's Guangdong Province, one of the world's largest manufacturing bases.

Zhang's Quanshun Labor Service Co. in Guangdong's Shenzhen helps more than 20,000 farmers-turned-workers find jobs every year. He hopes to increase the figure to 40,000 this year.

Known as the "Captain of Migrant Workers," Zhang, 41, was himself once a migrant worker. Because of poverty, Zhang quit school at the age of 16 and began working to support his family. In 1999, he started up a toy company in Shenzhen six years after settling down in the city. In 2004, Zhang founded Quanshun Co. and has since served as its president. The company recruits workers, offers them free vocational training and contracts them to local enterprises. It also defends workers in labor disputes.

In 2008, Zhang was elected a deputy to the NPC.