300 mln Chinese farmers to enter cities amid urbanization in next two decades

About 300 million Chinese farmers are expected to move into cities and towns for jobs in the coming 20 years with the country's expanding urbanization, said a senior official Monday.

The massive migration of rural labourers will bring great changes to China's future economic and social structure, said Liu He, vice-minister of the Office of the Central Leading Group of Financial and Economic Affairs.

Though tough challenges lie ahead in China's urbanization drive, it is still important for China to boost the development of cities in the coming years, Liu said at the China Development Forum concluded on Monday.

Statistics from Liu's office indicated that the country's urbanization rate hit 43 percent.

But China faces many problems in its urbanization drive, such as low wages and lack of social security for migrant labourers, said Liu.

Liu said China would adopt a step-by-step reform of its decades-old "hukou" (household registration) system but suggested that the "green card" system practised in Shanghai and some other cities be adopted in more cities.

Source: Xinhua