People living in cities and the countryside should enjoy equal opportunities because improved urban-rural integration will drive domestic spending and urbanization, a senior think-tank has said.

China's huge gap between rural and urban development is among the world's worst, said Chi Fulin, president of the China (Hainan) Institute for Reform and Development at a forum on urbanization over the weekend.

"Statistics show that in China, the income of urban citizens is about three times that of farmers, and this is only the nominal difference," Chi said.

To close the gap, it is necessary to establish a universal job market, an inclusive social security system and a public service network that provides equal opportunities for both urban and rural people, said Song Xiaowu, director of China Society of Economic Reform.

Urban-rural integration has great potential to boost domestic spending, said Gao Shangquan, board chair of the institute.

"A series of policy tools to boost rural consumption since 2008 have seen positive effects, such as expanding sales of household electric appliances in the countryside," Gao said.

If China's urbanization rate is raised by a percentage point each year, that would require an investment of 6.6 trillion yuan in construction of the urban infrastructure, Gao said.

About 46 percent of the people in China live in cities and the figure is set to reach 55 percent by 2020, Chi said, adding that China's pace of urbanization has fallen behind that of industrialization.

(China Daily December 7, 2009)