1st LD-Writethru: Urban work focused again in China meeting after 37 years

China addressed its future city development in a Central Urban Work Conference on Sunday, specially devoting a meeting to the issue after last doing so in 1978.

More than 50 percent of the country's population lived in cities at the end of 2011, compared with 18 percent 37 years ago.

Rapid urbanization in the past decades has brought about significant changes to China's economy and society, while giving rise to traffic jams, air pollution and resource strain in cities.

China needs to make better plans on urban development and management in future to tackle those problems, as fast urbanization often comes with a rise of social conflicts, analysts say.

Although nearly 55 percent of China's population live in cities, only less than 40 percent are registered urban residents, official data show.

China plans to raise those ratios to around 60 percent and 45 percent respectively by 2020.

According to a statement released after a meeting of the Communist Party of China Central Committee Political Bureau last week, the country will speed up the transformation of migrant rural workers into urban residents, and increase the urbanization ratio calculated on the number of registered urban residents.

China will also make cities more livable, and improve urban planning and management, the statement said. Endi