China’s State Council announced on Sunday it will invest over 1 trillion yuan ($162 billion) to redevelop 'shantytowns'. Rural residents will see their incomes rise, which in turn will increase consumption, while investment in urban infrastructure, public service facilities and housing will hopefully boost economic development.
The 2014-2020 urbanization document was unveiled on Sunday by the State Council as reported by Xinhua. The government explained it will build more railways and increase the number of small and medium-sized cities as it seeks to raise the proportion of urban residents in the population, a factor considered as China’s next strong engine for sustainable and healthy economic development.
The country will speed up the construction of railways, expressways and airports to support the ‘rapid’ urbanization. The plan is for regular railways to cover cities with more than 200,000 inhabitants by 2020 and high-speed railways those with more than 500,000.
Last Thursday, premier Li Keqiang said that tens of millions of people still live in dilapidated housing in shantytowns. At the moment, urban residents in China only make up 53.7 percent of the population, and the government wants to raise this to 60 percent by 2020. The worldwide average for developed countries is 80 percent.
Authorities will reportedly remove restrictions on obtaining household registration permits (hukou) in small cities, while it will strictly control the populations of cities with over five million residents. China will help 100 million people get status as urban residents by 2020. CCTV reports that over 4.75 million households will be involved in the plans.
Last year, China spent 1.12 trillion yuan ($180 billion) on subsidized housing, according to the housing ministry. The government “basically completed work” on 5.44 million subsidized housing units in urban areas and started construction on another 6.66 million, the National Development and Reform Commission announced earlier this month.
During an urbanization conference in December, Chinese leaders said “diverse and sustainable” funding mechanisms will be developed to finance the new policies, adding that attention must be paid to the environmental impact of such development, according to Xinhua.
[Image via Wikipedia]
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