Qiang Wei was elected Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Qinghai Provincial People's Congress at the first plenary session of the 11th Qinghai Provincial People's Congress held in the province's capital of Xining on Wednesday.

The meeting also elected Song Xiuyan as governor of Qinghai and Liu Xiaoyang as chief of the Qinghai Higher People's Court.

Qiang, born in March 1953, was appointed as secretary of the Qinghai Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) last March. A native of Wuxi in the eastern province of Jiangsu, Qiang joined the CPC in 1975.

Before moving to Qinghai, Qiang served as deputy secretary of the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee from March 2001 to March 2007. He is now a member of the 17th Central Committee of the CPC.

(Xinhua News Agency January 16, 2008)