China will boost spending in 2013 in a bid to deliver economic growth of 7.5 percent for the year, Premier Wen Jiabao said on Tuesday at the opening of the country's annual parliament meetings.

Thousands of delegates gathered in Beijing's Great Hall of the People on Tuesday to hear Wen's work report at the opening of the National People's Congress (NPC) session.

Wen said that the international financial crisis had taken its toll on China's economy, but that the government had succeeded in bringing the country through it.

Wen also pledged to fight rampant corruption that has become a focus for public anger.

Xi Jinping, who will become president during the two-week parliament meeting, has put beating graft at the centre of his leadership since he became general secretary of the communist party late last year.

Wen also addressed the country's chronic pollution, which has become a core concern for the stability-obsessed party because of the public anger and protests it generates across the country.

The issue has sprung into focus during a particularly smoggy winter during which air quality levels in Beijing and other northern Chinese cities were regularly labelled as unhealthy or hazardous.

Delegates pouring out of the Great Hall after the ceremony praised Wen's report, and said its focus on the economy was important to improve rural standards of living.

China's growing gulf between rich and poor, compounded by official corruption, has also stoked resentment in the country's poorer regions.

Presented by Adam Justice

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/china-congress-wen-jiabao-power-transfer-jinping-442122