BEIJING -- Lawmakers and political advisors from China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) highlighted Saturday the democratic development in Hong Kong while calling for support for universal suffrage in the international financial hub in 2017.

Hong Kong's constitutional development has entered a critical phase, Chan Yung, vice chairman of the Hong Kong-based Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, told Xinhua on the sidelines of China's ongoing parliamentary session.

Members of the HKSAR Legislative Council are due to vote in June on whether to endorse a constitutional reform plan that would see universal suffrage in the 2017 election of the HKSAR's chief executive.

Under the plan, which was approved by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) in August last year, two or three candidates would be allowed to run for the HKSAR's top job on the basis of nomination by a "broadly representative" committee.

The current HKSAR chief executive was elected by a committee in 2012.

"Failing to pass the constitutional reform plan would be a huge loss for the 5 million voters in Hong Kong," said NPC deputy Wong Ting-chung with the Hong Kong Industrial and Commercial Association.

Speaking with NPC deputies from Hong Kong Friday, China's top legislator Zhang Dejiang said the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China sincerely hopes the region can carry out the universal suffrage in the election of the HKSAR chief executive in 2017 according to the Hong Kong Basic Law and decisions made by the NPC Standing Committee.