Beijing releases plan to address "urban diseases"

Non-capital functions including manufacturing, logistics, wholesale markets and partial functions of public service will be gradually phased out to ease Beijing's "urban diseases", the municipal government said on Thursday.

According to the city's development and reform commission, non-capital functions amass huge amounts of population inside the city of Beijing, which hampers the government's promise to limit its population to 23 million.

Data show the wholesale clothes market surrounding Beijing Zoo in the downtown supplied more than 30,000 jobs and attracted up to 60,000 to 70,000, sometimes 100,000 visitors every day.

According to the Beijing Statistics Bureau, a total of 121 markets were closed in Beijing in 2014 and the first half of this year, which reduced the space covered by markets in the city by about 1.15 million square meters, or 8.2 percent of the total.

Eighty-eight top-level hospitals in the city receive over 200 million patients from across the country every year. Some hospitals have begun construction of branches in the suburbs. About 50 medical institutions based in Beijing have cooperation agreements with over 60 hospitals in neighboring Hebei Province.

The municipal government also decided to close 1,200 polluting factories by 2017. A total of 865 factories were shut down in the first half of this year. Endi