Gao's suggestion was accepted by the Finance Ministry and the Health Ministry. Representatives of both said they would make it a key task to increase medical and health investment, especially in rural areas.

"Education is too expensive for people to afford, and I don't think higher education tuition fees should be raised," said another CPPCC National Committee member Xu Xinhua.

According to Xu, China began to reform its education tuition fees structure in 1989 and over the past 18 years the tuition for higher education in China has increased by 25 times. Education costs now rank top in family expenditure, above housing and old age support expenses. Per capita income for urban citizens has increased by four times during the same time period, and education costs are a primary cause of family poverty, accounting for 32.6 percent, 25.9 percent and 23.3 percent of the income of a rural, urban and township families respectively.

The country's education department was again thinking about raising the cost of education, which caused much discontent among many NPC deputies and political advisory members, including Xu, who spoke out against a rise and forced a change of plan.

"There will not be a rise in higher education price," guaranteed Zhou Ji, the country's Education Minister. The minister added that there would in fact be extra investment in education to improve its quality. This was just one of many policies introduced at the suggestion of regional representatives at the two national meetings.

Government critics

As well as proposals, there was also some sharp criticism given out at the meetings. On March 4, the second day of the CPPCC meeting, a set of pictures demonstrating local governments' extravagant constructions of office buildings spread through media and the Internet.

The pictures were taken by Lu Dadao, an academic from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The images revealed a shocking level of extravagance, showing luxury administration buildings, one resembling the U.S. White House, another the Tiananmen Rostrum in Beijing, in otherwise poor areas.

These pictures made their way to the tables of the CPPCC meeting via Ye Danian, also an academic of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a member of the Standing Committee of the CPPCC National Committee. "It's a warning signal that in recent years local governments have been building improper administration buildings on broad stretches of land which used to be good farm land," said Ye.

Soon afterwards criticism about local governments' extravagant spending and wastefulness could be heard in every panel discussions of the meeting.

"This goes against the objective of building a society that's proud of being thrifty and frugal, and there is corruption lying behind many of these grand buildings," said NPC deputy Shi Heping.

"Some local leaders are dying to make themselves look good and more international, but without the consideration of their reality. These superficial facelifts do not result in local economic development but cause social discontent," said another NPC deputy, Chen Huijuan.

"People are strongly critical of such a bad phenomenon and it must be stopped," noted Liu Jianzhong, a CPPCC member.