China Forms Three Metropolitan Areas: Report

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, December 20, 2002

China Forms Three Metropolitan Areas: Report

Three new metropolitan areas have been established along China's long eastern coast in the northern, central and southern regions, respectively. The urbanization rate in China will rise from the current 37 per cent to 75 per cent within the next 50 years.

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Three new metropolitan areas have been established along China's long eastern coast in the northern, central and southern regions, respectively.

The three metropolitan areas will serve as economic centers with the aim of boosting the development of their surrounding areas.

The three areas include the group of cities around the Bohai Bay, the Yangtze River Delta and the Zhujiang River Delta.

Nearly one hundred top-level experts and scholars from home and abroad concluded in the China Urban Development Report (2001-2002) that the areas are being established to expedite China's urbanization process.

Published in Beijing on Thursday, the report was prepared by the team of experts and is the first to focus on urban development.

Niu Wenyuan, head of the research team for the sustainable development strategy under the supervision of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that China should establish a three-dimensional framework for its urban development.

According to Niu, the framework should include three central metropolitan areas, seven economic belts, and a number of central cities selected for their specific features.

The three metropolitan areas have already been formed, said there port.

According to Niu, the metropolitan area plays a very important role in the national and regional economy. Not only must there be a sound investment environment and improved urban management, but also well-developed suburban areas which serve as regional economic centers.

Academician He Zuoxiu of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said that, in addition to the three economic centers, China should also develop some short-distance economic belts connecting neighboring cities, such as that which exists between Shanghai and Nanjing.

A number of centrally-located cities should also be established, selected for their distinctive economic or tourism-related features, said the academician.

According to the report, upon completion of the entire framework, these areas will be inhabited by over half of the Chinese population, with 80 percent of national GDP, 90 percent of national industry output value and 95 percent of China's total trade volume produced there.

Urbanization to double its size 'in 50 years'

The urbanization rate in China will rise from the current 37 per cent to 75 per cent within the next 50 years, according to the Report released. Within the next five decades, the population in cities and towns will reach between 1.1 billion and 1.2 billion, while a well-organized, complementary and optimized "urban system" will be set up.

The report described this system as open, mobile, well-organized and complementary. Such an urban system is expected to solve the problems faced by the current urbanization process in China, such as the fact that the big cities are still not considered big enough and the medium-sized ones do not play as active a role in the Chinese economy as they should.

Around 100 experts and scholars from China and abroad produced the report, the first in China on urban development.

According to the report, only 11 per cent of the Chinese population live in cities with populations of 1 million or more. This compares to the world average level of 16 per cent.

The Chinese mainland has 662 cities and more than 20,000 towns, with a combined total population of over 480 million.

China's current low degree of urbanization, its insufficient urban population and economic scale in many large cities have limited economic development and affected national competitiveness, said scientist Niu Wenyuan, one of the report's main authors.

Jiang Zhenghua, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, said at the report's launch ceremony yesterday that China's urbanization still lags behind that of developed countries.

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