BEIJING: China has mapped out major steps to further advance its “new urbanization” strategy, offering migrant workers broader access to urban public services, strengthening industrial development in less-urbanized areas and promoting a more shared growth of cities.
The steps were rolled out as the State Council, China’s Cabinet, recently issued a five-year action plan to carry out a strategy that pursues new urbanization, which reiterated the nation’s pledge to put the people first.
China introduced a six-year plan for implementing new urbanization in 2014. A resolution adopted at the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in July pledged to improve the institutions and mechanisms for advancing new urbanization.
Huang Hanquan, head of the Chinese Academy of Macroeconomic Research, said new urbanization, with its emphasis on putting the people first, is significantly different from China’s traditional approach to urbanization, which focused on “the expansion of city areas and the construction of tall buildings”.
The country will run a campaign to help those who have moved from rural areas to cities enjoy the same rights and fulfill the same obligations as their urban peers, according to the action plan.
Urbanization in China rapidly sped up after the nation embraced a reform and opening-up policy starting from 1978. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
