Action Plan Unveiled to Promote New Urbanization During the 14th Five-Year Plan Period (Part 1)

Aerial photo shows a view of Yongxing town in Meitan county, Southwest China's Guizhou province. [Photo/Xinhua]

National Development and Reform Commission unveiled an action plan that detailed efforts to promote new urbanization during the 14^th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25)， which is expected to inject new vitality into economic growth and accelerate the nation's high-quality development.

1. General requirements

1.1 Guiding ideology

To follow the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, implement the guiding principles of the Party’s 19^th National Congress and all plenary sessions of the 19^th Party Central Committee, act on the general principle of pursuing progress while ensuring stability, apply the new development philosophy in full, in the right way, and in all fields of endeavor and move faster to create a new pattern of development, pursue high-quality development of urbanization as the general aim, transform the urban development model as the main task, harness reform and innovation of system and mechanism as the key source of momentum in our endeavor to meet the fundamental goal of satisfying the people’s growing needs for a better life, balance development and security imperatives, advance a new, people-centered type of urbanization strategy, continue to move faster to grant permanent urban residency to people who move to cities from rural areas, create networks of cities and towns based on city clusters while enabling the coordinated development of cities of different sizes and small towns, promote the healthy, livable, and safe development of cities, advance the modernization of China's system and capacity for governance, promote the integrated urban-rural development, and bring powerful strength and solid support for building China into a great modern socialist country.

1.2 Work principles

Strengthening overall planning and coordinating actions. Taking a whole-of-nation approach, strengthen top-level design, focus on the overall planning, strategic layout, and general promotion, reinforce institutional convergence, task coordination, and policy support, and give better play to the motivation of central and local governments to work together.

Taking targeted and differentiated measures. Adjust measures based on local conditions such as resources, factors, and economic and social development, consider the differences during the urbanization development stages, identify the respective development position of urban clusters, large, medium, and small cities, implement targeted tasks and measures, and form a realistic and distinctive development model for each city.

Exploring with motivation and making key breakthroughs. Respect the pioneering spirit of grassroots, further extend the exploration of reform, seize the main conflicts with details, focus on key sectors and links such as migrant workers integrating into cities, integration of urban clusters, urban governance, and urban-rural integrated development, and constantly improve the institutional mechanism and policy system.

Steadily resuming development and holding the bottom line. Step by step to cumulate effects, do everything within the capacity, reasonably determine the timing and steps, draw up a clear line for ecological conservation and designate permanent farmland and demarcate the boundaries of urban development, protect and conserve the traditional culture, strictly control local government debt risks, prevent the disorderly expansion of capital, strengthen public security, optimize emergency management system while preventing and resolving major risks and hidden dangers.

1.3 Major objectives

By 2025, the percentage of permanent urban residents will steadily raise, the urbanization rate of the registered population will increase significantly, and the gap between the urbanization rate of the registered population and the percentage of permanent urban residents will be dramatically narrowed. The quality of urbanization of rural migrant people who move to cities will be improved, and the basic urban public services will cover the entire unsettled permanent population. The “two horizontal and three vertical” urbanization strategic pattern will be completely formed, the capacity of urban clusters to carry population and economy will be enhanced, the construction of major metropolitan circles will make significant progress, and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area on rail will be built. Reduce the non-core functions in central urban areas of mega-cities, gradually improve the function quality of large and medium-sized cities, increase the development vitality of small cities, and make important progress in the urbanization with a focus on county towns. Enhance the sustainability of urban development, demarcate the boundaries of urban development, the scale of new construction land is controlled within 29.5 million mu, the urban waterlogging control achieve remarkable results, the renewal of aging urban gas and other pipelines will be further promoted, the efficiency of energy and resource utilization will be greatly improved, the urban black and malodorous water bodies will be treated and restored, the percentage of days with good air quality is increased to 87.5 percent in cities at and above the prefecture-level, and the urban green coverage rate expanded to 43%. A complete, scientific, and effective urban governance system will be established, the governance capacity is significantly enhanced.

2. Speed up the work on migrant workers integrating into cities.

Adhere to the promotion of the agricultural migrant population as the primary task of the new urbanization, prioritize the stock, drive the increment, advance the reform of the household registration system, promote equal access to basic public services in cities and towns, improve the supporting policy system, and improve the quality of migrant workers integrating into cities.

2.1 Deepen the reform of the household registration system.

Relax restrictions on household registration in non-megacities, and begin to implement the household registration system based on the place of permanent residence. Each city can formulate specific household registration methods according to local conditions to promote the migrant workers with solid jobs and lives to settle in cities with their family members, enjoy the same rights and fulfill the same obligations as urban residents. Improve the national open and unified government service platform for household registration management, protect the rural land contract right, rural homestead use rights, and rural collective economy distribution right for the migrant workers who have settled in cities, and improve the market-based exit mechanism and supporting policies for farmers’ “three rights” mentioned above.

2.2 Improve the mechanism for providing basic public service in urban areas.

Establish a mechanism whereby basic public services are linked to the permanent population and provided by the place of permanent residence, steadily increase the number and improve the quality of basic public services enjoyed by the non-permanent residents in the areas with population inflows, and promote the full coverage of urban basic public services for the permanent population. Improve the actual enjoyment of compulsory education and housing security for residential permit holders, and explore the implementation of electronic residential permits reform.

2.3 Improve the quality of labor skills of agricultural migrants.

Focus on industries with prominent employment conflicts such as intelligent manufacturing, information technology, medical care, housekeeping service, and nursing care for the elderly, as well as new industries such as ride-hailing, online delivery, and live broadcast sales, and continue to carry out large-scale vocational training for the new generation of migrant workers.

2.4 Strengthen the basic public education guarantees for children who migrate with their parents.

Protect the right of migrant children to receive compulsory education in the areas with population inflows mainly in public schools. Gradually include the agricultural migrant population into the guaranteed scope of secondary vocational education, general high school education, and public-interest preschool education in the inflow areas.

2.5 Consolidate and improve the social security system and insurance coverage.

Promote the national social security program to fully cover the legal population. Steadily bring pension schemes under national unified management. Ensure the basic medical insurance under municipal unified management while promoting provincial unified management. Advance the unemployment insurance under provincial unified management, consolidate and improve the work-related injury insurance under provincial unified management, and implement the measure for the protection of work-related injuries for the people who worked in new employment forms. Support the qualified regions to gradually promote the residential permit holders to apply for minimum subsistence allowances in their permanent residence.

2.6 Strengthen the protection of rights for migrant workers.

Establish an employment mechanism for equal participation of workers in the market competition, gradually eliminate unreasonable restrictions or employment discrimination affecting equal employment, and enhance the inclusiveness of the labor market. Improve the supervision of labor dispatch, and establish a mechanism to protect the rights of workers in new employment forms. Improve the long-term mechanism for the treatment of wage arrears. Encourage legal aid agencies to provide legal services for migrant workers. Migrant workers enjoy equal attitudes in the process of urban management and comprehensive law enforcement and introduce the migrant workers to participate in group organizations.

2.7 Improve the supporting policies for migrant workers integrating into cities.

Improve the central and provincial financial incentive mechanism for the migrant workers to integrate into cities, establish a work coordination mechanism for the governmental departments including the finance bureau, development and reform commission, public security, etc., and the regions with more population inflows will receive more financial support from the central and provincial government. The formulation and revision of territorial and spatial planning at all levels shall fully consider the factors of population, especially the number of migrant residents, scientifically calculate and reasonably arrange the scale of incremental construction land in urban areas, and give priority to ensuring the construction of compulsory education schools and affordable housing in areas with large population inflows.

Source:

<http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/zhengceku/2022-07/12/content_5700632.htm>

<http://english.www.gov.cn/policies/latestreleases/202206/07/content_WS629f170ac6d02e533532bcf7.html>

Edited and translated by Guo Xinxin