Long-term urbanization plan due this year

A development plan for the country's medium and long-term urbanization will be launched in the second half of the year, an official with the country's top planning agency said on Thursday.

The main content of the plan will be a detailed layout of Premier Li Keqiang's concept of "new-type urbanization", focusing on giving the nation's 250 million migrant workers more recognition as urban residents, said Li Tie, director-general of the China Center for Urban Development at the National Development and Reform Commission.

According to Li Tie, the plan consists of four parts, with the first being "to orderly promote a sustainable urbanization process, which will focus on building smart, ecological and low-carbon cities".

The second part of the plan is about how to speed up the reform of the half-century-old hukou household registration system.

"This also has two sub-plans. First, we will implement an open-door hukou system for eligible migrant workers, particularly for those living in small and medium-sized cities.

"Second, we will improve the residence permit system to enable migrant workers to enjoy basic public services as urban residents."

The third part of the plan includes a guideline for the reasonable development of cities of different sizes.

While giving more development opportunities to small and medium-sized cities, the guideline will encourage the gathering of capital, labor and technology in large cities.

The development plan will establish a basic framework for urbanization policies, within which there will be administrative, land and financing reforms.

"The over-expansion of some Chinese cities has resulted in a severe waste of resources, and we will head toward a high-energy and resource-consuming mode if we follow the old path," Li Tie said.

He added that urbanization will aim at lowering urban density, enhancing conservation, and increasing foreign and private investment.

Jiang Kejun, a senior researcher with the NDRC's Energy System Analysis and Market Analysis Research Center, said the plan would include measures to cut urban carbon emissions and energy consumption. "Beijing's annual coal consumption will be reduced from the current 29 million tons to 19 million tons in 2015, and further to 5 million tons."

An executive meeting of the State Council, or the cabinet, on Monday led by Premier Li called for a medium to long-term development plan for urbanization to be studied, and supporting policies, such as hukou reform, to be launched.

Earlier reports said the plan will be submitted to the State Council for approval by the end of June, before detailed policies and supporting local measures are released.

According to Li Tie, the final plan will be issued in the second half of this year.

Xu Lin, director of the NDRC's department of development and planning, was quoted by Caixin Media as saying that opinions on the plan are being sought from local authorities and experts. The NDRC has carried out research for more than two years with 14 other ministries on China's urbanization plan toward 2020, Xu said.

He called the plan the toughest mission for NDRC in more than two decades, not only because of differing views on the issue, but because it is dealing with the world's largest population and fastest urbanization process.

China's urbanization level is 52.6 percent in terms of permanent urban residents, compared with 80 percent in Western countries.

However, only one-third of the Chinese population possesses a city hukou, qualifying them for improved social welfare, excluding about 250 million migrant workers in cities.

Xu said China's urbanization level, which has been growing at 1.3 percentage points annually since 2000, would continue climbing and finally stabilize at between 70 and 80 percent in the next two decades.