China has decided to convene its annual national congress in Beijing on March 5 next year, state-run media reported Saturday, signaling its confidence that the novel coronavirus outbreak has already been brought under control at home.

The decision was adopted at the National People's Congress Standing Committee, China's top legislative body, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Lawmakers are expected to discuss a new five-year economic plan, covering between 2021 and 2025, and long-term goals through 2035, as the ruling party has pledged to uphold a "dual circulation" strategy to bolster domestic demand while trying to boost exports.

The long-term goals include commitments to making a breakthrough in the high-tech field and improving the modernization of supply chains for the coming 15 years, as the United States has been attempting to exclude China from the global trade network.

Every year, an annual session of China's parliament takes place for around 10 days from March 5 in Beijing, but it was postponed this year to May 22 in the wake of the spread of the virus, first detected in the central city of Wuhan late last year.

Although China usually sets its gross domestic product growth target at a parliamentary session, it abandoned doing so in 2020, with the epidemic significantly blurring the economic outlook.

Since the increase in new infections apparently peaked in late February, the world's second-biggest economy has shown signs of a V-shaped recovery as business activities have intensified and retail sales have been recuperating.

China's economy grew 4.9 percent from a year earlier during the July-September period, marking the second straight quarter of expansion, after shrinking 6.8 percent in the first three months of 2020, when the virus raged in the country.