(Writes through) By Jason Subler and Chris Buckley BEIJING, March 16 (Reuters) - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said social justice and political reforms to stem corruption would guide policy in the coming year, as the country's annual session of parliament closed with the passage of a landmark property law. The premier, who made limiting China's breakneck growth with energy savings and spending on the countryside a theme of this year's parliament, also cautioned that investment growth was too high and economic development neither stable nor balanced. "The two great tasks are first, focusing our energies on developing the productive forces of society, and second, advancing social justice and fairness," Wen said at a news conference. "The speed of a fleet is not determined by the fastest vessel, rather it is determined by the slowest one." Delegates to the National People's Congress, which acts largely as a rubber stamp for Communist Party policy, closed the session with the passage of the property law, which for the first time explicitly protects private property. They also passed a corporate income tax bill that ends preferential treatment for foreign-funded firms by unifying tax rates at 25 percent. The move reflects China's determination to wean its economy off exports and move away from cheap manufactured goods. Wen said China must do more to focus on groups left out of the country's rapid rise into the world's fourth-largest economy, particularly farmers. "The priorities now are ... narrowing income gaps and building social security networks that cover both the cities and the countryside," he said. Increasing protests across China fuelled by corruption, land grabs and a yawning rich-poor gap threaten stability, underscoring the leadership's concerns over the chasm between booming coastal cities and the lagging hinterland. CHECKING CORRUPTION Wen also stressed the need to improve the quality of listed companies and the administration of capital markets as a bull run drove Chinese stock valuations far above international levels, sparking fears that a speculative bubble may be developing. "I pay attention to the development of the stock market, but I pay even more attention to the health of the stock market," said Wen, a geologist by training. And he directly addressed the issue of corruption, after a year in which top leaders have been sacked for graft and the business and political elite of Shanghai is under scrutiny for its role in a scandal involving embezzled social security funds. Wen, who survived Cultural Revolution purges on his way to the pinnacle of power, blamed corruption on a lack of checks and balances and held out the prospect of greater popular oversight of officials. "The solution to this problem above all needs to be addressed in institutions. We should push forward political reforms and reduce the over-concentration of power and strengthen people's supervision over the government," he said. DIVERSIFYING RESERVES Wen reaffirmed China's plans to set up an agency to invest part of the country's more than $1 trillion in foreign exchange reserves. Such an agency would have no impact on U.S. dollar-denominated assets and would make proper use of foreign exchange reserves with the goal of preserving and increasing their value, he said. Managing such large foreign exchange reserves posed a challenge for a country with little experience in investing abroad, Wen added. In foreign affairs, Wen said he hoped his visit to Japan in April would be an "ice-thawing journey", following a period of rancour over issues stemming from Japan's pre-World War Two invasion of China. And in a nod to his fast-industrialising country's environmental woes, Wen said China would issue a plan to address climate change, but he held out no promises to accept international caps on its growing greenhouse gas emissions.(Additional reporting by Emma Graham-Harrison, Ben Blanchard, Guo Shipeng, Eadie Chen, Langi Chiang, Vivi Lin, Benjamin Kang Lim, Niu Shuping, Lucy Hornby, Zhou Xin and Tamora Vidaillet)
