Jia Qinglin, the Communist Party's No. 4 ranking leader, told delegates at the close of the annual session of the legislative advisory body that more will need to be done to cope with the international financial crisis and keep the economy churning.

"This year it will be crucial for China to continue to deal with the global financial crisis and to maintain steady and relatively fast economic development," said Jia, the conference chairman, at the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference's closing ceremony.

That message is likely to be repeated Sunday as China's biggest political event of the year, the National People's Congress, comes to a close.

Beijing declared that China had emerged from the global crisis after economic growth rebounded to 10.7 percent in the final quarter of 2009. But authorities say the global outlook is still uncertain, amid worries that a stimulus-driven torrent of lending is adding to inflation and fueling a dangerous bubble in stock and real estate prices.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao set the tone for the legislative sessions on March 5 when he announced that China needs to focus on economic growth while controlling inflation and addressing the country's growing wealth gap.

Delegates had similar concerns. About 40 percent of the 5,430 proposals submitted by the advisory body to the government this year focused on stepping up economic reform and growth, the government said. About 1,100 were concerned with social harmony and stability, a major concern amid the growing income gap between rural and urban residents.

The grandson of communist China's revolutionary founder Mao Zedong said after Jia's speech that "the problem of economic development" was China's biggest challenge.

Mao Xinyu, a general and military historian, is among the 2,237 members of the advisory body, which advises the congress on legislation but has no decision-making power.

Delegates' proposals reflected in part some of China's biggest problems. Saturday's session highlighted their concerns about inflation, health care, food safety and one of the biggest popular complaints - soaring property prices.

Some delegates also urged reform in another hot issue, China's household registration system, or "hukou," which essentially identifies each Chinese citizen as urban or rural and restricts their access to government services to the place where they are registered.

The system's limits have become increasingly clear as millions of migrant workers continue to leave their rural homes to find work in booming cities and find themselves without a welfare safety net.

More than a dozen newspapers published a rare joint editorial just before the legislative session urging reforms to the system - a daring act that got the editorial's co-author punished. Zhang Hong, a former deputy editor with the Beijing-based Economic Observer, would only say he is now an "independent commentator."