New urbanization accelerates toward higher-quality development

The Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee put forward new goal requirements for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, proposing to achieve “a faster increase in the urbanization rate of registered residents.” In the explanatory notes on the recommendations for the “13th Five-Year Plan,” “accelerating the increase of the urbanization rate of registered residents” was also listed as an issue requiring focused explanation, with the explicit statement that “the urbanization rate of registered residents directly reflects the healthiness of urbanization.” The emphasis placed on the concept of the “urbanization rate of registered residents” highlights that, in advancing urbanization, the state pays greater attention to the quality of urbanization, to the equalization of public services, and to the people-centered development philosophy.

⟦NL> The urbanization rate of registered residents is considered relative to the urbanization rate of permanent residents. With the increase in China's agricultural transferred population in recent years, the urban permanent resident population has continued to grow. At present, China's urban permanent resident population has reached 750 million, and the urbanization rate of permanent residents is already close to 55%. However, calculated according to the number of urban registered residents in 2013, the urbanization rate of registered residents was only 35.9%. On this basis, it is estimated that about 250 million permanent urban residents currently do not have urban household registration, which also means that although they live in cities and towns, they cannot enjoy the same public services as urban registered residents in education, employment, social security, medical care, and affordable housing, among other areas. This brings a series of complex economic and social problems, and it also shows that the quality of China's urbanization still needs to be improved.

⟦NL> To achieve higher-quality new urbanization, China must accelerate the reform of its household registration system. According to the forecast in the “National New Urbanization Plan (2014-2020),” by 2020 China's urbanization rate of registered residents will reach about 45%. Calculated on the basis of the 35.9% urbanization rate of registered residents in 2013, this requires an average annual increase of 1.3 percentage points, and an average annual transfer of more than 16 million people to urban household registration, a difficult and complex task. To solve this problem, the reform of the household registration system must be accelerated. Last year, the State Council already issued the “Opinions on Further Advancing the Reform of the Household Registration System,” which clearly proposed the goal of striving to achieve the settlement of about 100 million agricultural transferred population and other permanent residents in cities and towns by 2020. This requires fully unleashing the absorbing capacity of small and medium-sized cities through reform, rationally giving play to the absorbing capacity of large cities, and all localities needing to intensify the implementation of household registration system reform and accelerate the improvement of related supporting policies.

⟦NL> To achieve higher-quality new urbanization, it is necessary to accelerate the promotion of urban industrial development and the supply of public services. The process of urbanization is not simply letting farmers enter cities; its essence is that the agricultural transferred population has stable jobs, housing, and corresponding social security in cities and towns. This requires cities and towns to provide newly settled permanent residents with equal access to social service resources such as employment, education, medical care, and social security, and to promote the equalization of public services. As the urban registered resident population increases, more public service resources are needed. Under such circumstances, how can the effective supply of public service resources be ensured? This requires making the “cake” bigger. It is necessary to accelerate the development of small and medium-sized cities and towns, which are the main force in absorbing newly settled population. By increasing state support for these areas in infrastructure construction, fixed asset investment, and the allocation of public resources, their capacity to provide jobs and their capacity to guarantee social public services should be improved, so as to provide corresponding support for newly settled population to enjoy public services equally.

⟦NL> To achieve higher-quality new urbanization, it is necessary to accelerate the deepening of reform of the rural property rights system. The two sides of the same coin with raising the urbanization rate of registered residents are the continuous decrease of the rural registered population, which also means that more and more people are permanently leaving rural areas. In this process, what farmers worry about is whether settling in cities and towns will lead to the loss of the “three rights” (land contract management rights, homestead use rights, and the right to share in collective returns); the state and society, meanwhile, must face the problem of “who will farm the land” brought by the transfer of the agricultural population, as well as problems such as the idle and wasted resources of homesteads and the houses on them. Therefore, it is necessary to accelerate reform of the rural property rights system, standardize the land transfer system, cultivate new types of agricultural operating entities, reform the collective asset management system, and carry out orderly withdrawal reform of the “three rights” on the basis of respecting farmers' wishes and safeguarding farmers' interests, among other measures. This will allow farmers to settle in cities and towns without worries and enable the rural resources they withdraw from to be effectively used.

⟦NL> Urbanization is an organic component of China's advancement of the “synchronization of the four modernizations” and an important symbol of national modernization. The essence of new urbanization is people-centered urbanization. This time the central government highlighted and emphasized the urbanization rate of registered residents, showing that China's approach to urbanization has become more pragmatic, more scientific, and more people-centered. This also requires that, during the “13th Five-Year Plan” period, in advancing new urbanization, China shift from focusing on quantitative increase to focusing on qualitative improvement, pay greater attention to the healthiness of urbanization, and let more people share the fruits of reform and development and enjoy a better urban and rural life.

⟦NL>