XI'AN, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- Yuan Chunqing, former vice governor of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, was elected governor of the province by the provincial legislature on Saturday.

    Yuan, 54, was elected to the post at the fifth session of the 10th Shaanxi Provincial People's Congress.

    A native of the Hanshou County in central China's Hunan Province, Yuan started his career as a local police officer. He then went to the Beijing University to further his education and obtained a law degree.

    Yuan has served as Secretary of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of China's Communist Youth League and member of the Standing Committee of CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection before moving to Shaanxi in 2001 to become vice secretary of the Provincial Party Committee.

    Since June last year, he was vice governor and later acting governor of Shaanxi province.

    Yuan is an alternate member of the 16th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

    His predecessor, 58-year-old Chen Deming, who became governor in February 2005, is now vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission.