China aspires to achieve quality, human-centric and sustainable urbanization, say government leaders following an urbanization work conference held by the central government. It was the highest-level meeting on urbanization to date.
President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang attended the conference. Leaders say urbanization is key to China’s drive to modernize.
According to the statement issued after the conference, urbanization should enable migrant workers from the countryside to gain status as urbanites in an orderly manner. China’s hukou system has long been seen as a barrier to urbanization as it restricts migrants from accessing many social services in cities where they may have worked and lived for years.
The document promises to eventually remove or ease hukou restrictions based on the city’s size. Restrictions will eventually be removed in towns and smaller cities. They will gradually be eased in medium-sized cities and certain conditions will be set to allow migrants to integrate in big cities. Strict control over population growth in mega cities will be maintained. More than half of China’s population now live in urban areas. In 1978 more than 82 percent of the people lived in the countryside.
Source: CCTV
