Dual Transfer Strategy Helps Promote In-situ Urbanization

At the recently held 4th China New Urbanization Summit, Gu Shengzu, member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, vice chairman of the Financial and Economic Affairs Committee, and vice chairman of the China Democratic National Construction Association, pointed out that in the past, the cost of the large-scale "migratory bird-style migration" of migrant workers was 60 million left-behind children and tens of millions of left-behind women and left-behind elderly people. These families paid a heavy price for this, and it is necessary to rely on the "dual transfer" driving force characterized mainly by "industrial transfer and labor return" to realize an in-situ urbanization model.

On the basis of extensive research on urbanization, Gu Shengzu put forward two concepts of "80% to 90%": on the one hand, surveys found that 80% to 90% of the new generation of farmers are willing to live and work in large cities; on the other hand, at present, the employment of 80% to 90% of migrant workers in cities is unstable, and their children's schooling is also a difficult issue. Differentiated household registration policies make it unattractive for some small cities to relax household registration, but staying in large cities also faces two problems: first, housing prices are too high, and second, the cost of living is too high, making it impossible to realize the dream of housing and settled living.

Should it be relocation to other places or in-situ urbanization? Should we "make large cities bigger" or "make more small cities"? In response, Gu Shengzu said that both processes should exist. As stated in the government work report, it is necessary both to grant urban household registration to 100 million people and to transfer 100 million people in situ. He pointed out that in the past, the cost of the large-scale "migratory bird-style migration" of migrant workers was 60 million left-behind children and tens of millions of left-behind women and left-behind elderly people. These families paid a heavy price for this. After more than 30 years of large-scale relocation to other places, we should reflect even more on the huge cost of this kind of relocation-based urbanization and better promote in-situ urbanization.

At present, China's economy has seen a "dual transfer" characterized mainly by "industrial transfer and labor return." This dual transfer's push and pull forces have driven the transfer of industry and labor to the central and western regions. We should rely on the driving force of the "dual transfer" to promote urbanization that is "tailored to local conditions" and "adapted to different people." That is, priority should be given to urbanization for people with stable employment and stable housing, allowing migrant workers who cannot find happiness in large cities to seek development in small and medium-sized cities near their hometowns. Once industry is transferred, there will be jobs, and they can also be near their families.

At the meeting, Gu Shengzu pointed out that in-situ urbanization must protect the lawful rights and interests of farmers, especially farmers' rights to land income. Last year, the 5th and 7th meetings of the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reform discussed issues such as rural land circulation and collective construction land entering the market, clearly upholding the separation of three rights under the premise of collective ownership of rural land, and clearly pointing out the three bottom lines of not changing the nature of public ownership of land, not breaching the red line for cultivated land, and not harming farmers' interests.

"The above policies make it clear that land cannot be privatized, but land can be capitalized," Gu Shengzu said. He believes that a series of policies such as agricultural land circulation have awakened the dormant rural land market, not only enabling farmers to obtain a certain income through land circulation, but also helping local governments inject vitality into the construction of new urbanization by improving the rural land financing market.