Transcript: Press conference on new urbanization plan

Presenters: Xu Xianping, Vice Minister of the National Development and Reform Commission; Huang Ming, Vice Minister of Public Security; Liu Kun, Vice Minister of Finance; Yang Zhiming, Vice Minister of Human Resources and Social Security; Wang Shiyuan, Vice Minister of Land and Resources and Qi Ji, Vice Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Date: March 19, 2014 Introduction: The press conference concerns the National New Urbanization Plan (2014-2020) which was issued on Sunday, March 16.

TRANSCRIPT:

Xu Xianping: Dear friends from the press,

Good morning. Recently, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the State Council officially issued the "National Plan on New Urbanization." It is a macroscopic, strategic and fundamental plan, and it is also China's first plan on urbanization enacted by the central authorities.

The compilation of the plan took three years, during which thirteen ministerial agencies, including the NDRC, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the Ministry of Land and Resource and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, jointly formed the compilation working group, and conducted coordinated target research and field trips.

The CPC Central Committee and the State Council have paid a lot of attention to the compilation of the plan. President Xi presided over the Central Financial Work Leading Group meeting and Political Bureau Standing Committee meeting, to review the text of the plan. Premier Li Keqiang has given several instructions and heard several debriefs. Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli has called several meetings to try to perfect the plan. The text of the plan has also been submitted to the Central Work Conference on Urbanization for deliberation.

The plan's compilation process focused on collecting ideas from people from all fields. The compilation staff carefully gathered opinions from delegates to the National People's Congress, members of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, experts and academics. Various research institutes, such as the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, along with some international agencies, including the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, have all provided their ideas about the plan.

The plan is divided into eight sections, which contain 31 chapters. The total word count is nearly 30,000 characters. The main content can be summarized as "one main line," "four tasks," and "five reforms."

The main line is that the plan should closely center around improving the quality of urbanization to accelerate the transformation of urbanization development that will see people-oriented urbanization as an essential value, and city clusters as a major form of urbanization, which will be supported by comprehensive accommodating capacity and safeguarded by institutional innovation. China's new type modernization should be people-oriented. Areas of modernization should develop in step with each other. The arrangement should be optimized, it should be ecologically friendly and carry forward cultural traditions.

The "four tasks" mean that in urbanization, we have to gradually settle the former agricultural population who have migrated to the cities, optimize urbanization, and increase the sustainability of cities to eventually achieve unified urban and rural development.

The "five reforms" means the government will step up efforts to manage population, control land resources, secure funds, build urban housing and protect the environment, to perfect the institutional system for urbanization development.

Thank you, friends from the press, for your attention and coverage of China's urbanization plan. Now I am giving the floor to six people, who will take your questions.