Over 5,000 village representatives of Enshi city in Central China's Hubei Province gathered at their village committees on Wednesday morning to discuss and make decisions on village affairs.

The activities coincide with the fourth session of the 10th National People's Congress, the country's top legislative body, which is convening some 1,000 km away in Beijing.

Enshi city has designated March 8 as an annual open day for village affairs. On this day, all the villages in the city will hold village representative conventions and invite representatives to decide, manage and supervise village affairs.

The city has 171 villages, and 600,000 out of its 780,000 residents are rurals people.

At 9:00 a.m., 35 village representatives entered the meeting room of Guchangba Village and listened to the village committee director Xie Dewei about the 2005 work report and 2006 work plan.

After Xie's report, Li Lingying, a village accountant, reported the financial situation to the village representatives.

Guchangba Village has 3,352 villagers, and the per capita annual income for farmers was only 1,369 yuan (about 171 U.S. dollars) in 2005, far less than the country's average of 400 U.S. dollars.

On hearing reports and explanations, 15 of the 33 villagers voiced their doubts and suggestions.

One villager complained that wild boar jeopardized their plants. Xie explained that wild boar are listed as protected animals. He would report to the forestry department on how to handle the issue.

Dialogue between village representatives and village officials is one of the seven agendas of their annual "villagers' congress".

Key issues were resolved when the meeting concluded at 4:00 p.m., which included building new roads, developing peanut planting and increasing per capita annual income by 100 yuan (about 12.5 US dollars).

Villager Tang Benyi said, "The 'big meeting' is going on in Beijing, and ours is the small one. Premier Wen drew up the government work report, our village committee director drew up out village's work report. The principle of decision-making is the same."

Guo Zhengwen, an official in charge of the grassroots government and community construction from the Civil Affairs Ministry, said that cadres of China's 630,000 villages were directly elected by their villagers, which will nurture a sense of democracy in farmers and place the village cadres under the democratic supervision.

Source: Xinhua