The urbanization rate of China's permanent population exceeded 65%, and urbanization entered the "second half"

More than 65%, urbanization enters the "second half"

In the past five years, the urbanization rate of the resident population has increased from 60.2% to 65.2% – this set of data in this year's government work report has attracted much attention.

This is the first time that the urbanization rate of China's permanent population has exceeded 65%, which means that the goal of "increasing the urbanization rate of the permanent population to 65%" proposed in the <>th Five-Year Plan has been achieved ahead of schedule.

What changes have changed behind 65%? Beyond 65%, how much space and impetus is there for urbanization? To promote a new type of urbanization with people at the core, where will China focus next?

In 10 years, 1 million rural people settled in cities and towns

Urbanization is the only way to modernization. Since the reform and opening up, China has experienced the world's largest and fastest urbanization process.

Looking at the scale, China's urban population increased by 1978.17245 million from 2022.92071 million in 74826 to <>.<> million in <>, which is more than the total population of Europe.

Looking at the speed, the urbanization rate of China's permanent population was 1978.17% in 92 and 2022.65% in 2, an increase of more than 40 percentage points in more than 47 years, and it took many developed countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States to achieve a jump in urbanization rate in the same period by more than twice the time.

With the rapid advancement of urbanization, more and more rural people are settling in cities. "When we moved into a new house, we became new citizens." In Dushan County, Guizhou Province, Cen Qunchang came to work at a new energy technology company in the county two years ago, "The salary is very good, and the social security is also paid normally." Now, the family has moved from their hometown in the countryside, and it is quite convenient to go to work and live. ”

The relevant person in charge of the Development and Reform Commission of Guizhou Province introduced that in recent years, Guizhou has adhered to the policy of comprehensively liberalizing the household registration migration policy for urban settlements, and promoted the stable employment of migrant workers and their relocated family members in cities and towns. Promote the implementation of the residence permit system, and accelerate the implementation of the policy of equal treatment of public services for rural migrants based mainly on residence permits. Since the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan", a total of more than 300 million rural migrants have been settled in cities and towns, and more than 200 million residence permits have been issued.

The primary task of promoting urbanization is to promote the orderly realization of the citizenization of the permanent population capable of stable employment and life in cities and towns. Data show that tens of millions of rural people move to cities and towns every year, and a total of 10 million rural people have settled in cities and towns in the past 1 years.

Gao Guoli, director of the China Center for Urban and Small Town Reform and Development, analyzed that with the issuance and landing of a series of relevant documents, China's household registration system reform has made a historic breakthrough. Cities with a permanent population of less than 300 million in urban areas have basically lifted settlement restrictions, and the conditions for settling in cities with a permanent population of more than 300 million in urban areas have been greatly relaxed, and many places have actively explored and implemented more relaxed settlement policies such as cross-regional coordination and mutual recognition of the number of years of residence and social security payment. "In 2021, the urbanization rate of the household registration population reached 46.7%, an increase of 1.3 percentage points over the previous year, higher than the increase of 0.83 percentage points in the urbanization rate of the permanent population, which is the first time since the '<>th Five-Year Plan' that the gap between the two urbanization rates has narrowed, and the urbanization of the rural transfer population has achieved remarkable results." Gao Guoli said.

It is still in the rapid development range

What are the prospects for continuing to promote urbanization? Experts believe that problems, challenges and opportunities coexist.

The urbanization rate of 30%-70% is generally considered to be the rapid development range of urbanization. In 1996, the urbanization rate of China's permanent population reached 30.48%, entering this range for the first time, and after more than 20 years of development, it is gradually approaching 70%.

Gao Guoli believes that in the future, the increase in urbanization rate will slow down compared with the previous period. From the perspective of international law, in the middle and late stages of urbanization development, the growth rate of urbanization rate shows a trend of high and low before and after. From the perspective of the domestic situation, the scale of migrant workers and their migrant families directly related to the growth rate of urbanization has continued to decrease since 2018, of which the number of people affected by the epidemic in 2020 decreased by 683.3 million year-on-year, a decrease of 8.2021%, and although the number of people in 2019 increased slightly year-on-year, it was still 614.3 million fewer than in 5, a decrease of 1.69%, to about <> million. In the future, the growth scale of migrant workers and their migrant families will be further reduced, which will lead to a gradual slowdown in the urbanization rate of the permanent population.

Uneven development is another challenge. According to the 2022 China Statistical Yearbook, 12 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) have urbanization rates higher than the national level, among which Shanghai, Beijing and Tianjin rank the top three, with 89.3%, 87.55% and 84.7% respectively; 19 are below the national level, of which 10 are below 60% and the lowest is 35.73%.

According to expert analysis, the quality of urbanization needs to be further improved, the reform of the household registration system and its supporting policies have not yet been fully implemented, the basic urban public services have not yet covered the entire permanent population, the coordination of the development of large, medium-sized and small cities is insufficient, the scale of megacities is expanding too fast, some small and medium-sized cities and towns are facing a reduction in economic and population scale, and the integrated development of urban and rural areas has a long way to go.

"Despite the challenges, on the whole, China is still in a period of rapid urbanization, and the momentum of urbanization is still strong." Gao Guoli said that from the perspective of the domestic situation, the current labor productivity of China's non-agricultural industry is more than four times that of agriculture, the per capita disposable income of urban residents is 4.2 times that of rural residents, and there is still a significant gap in infrastructure and public services between urban and rural areas. From the perspective of international experience, many developed countries that have completed urbanization have maintained rapid development in the more than 45 years after the urbanization rate reached 60%. In 10, the average GDP of Chinese will reach 2022,12741 US dollars, and the urbanization rate of the permanent population in the same period will be 65.2%, which is lower than the average of 67.59% in middle- and high-income countries and lower than the average of about 80% in high-income countries, and there is still some room for growth.

Accelerating the "Urbanization" of Rural Migrants

Entering the "second half", how to make urbanization go steadily and well? Accelerating the urbanization of the rural migrant population remains a key link.

"The urbanization of the rural migrant population is a systematic project, which not only involves the pattern of interests in the inflow and outflow areas, but also involves the transfer and continuation of social security, mutual recognition, and the protection of rural rights and interests." Gao Guoli said that at present, there is still a gap of about 18 percentage points between the urbanization rates of the permanent population and the household registration population, and more than 2 million rural migrants have not yet fully integrated into the city. Efforts should be made to improve the supporting policy system for the urbanization of the agricultural migrant population, and promote its full integration into the city in an orderly manner, so that the agricultural migrant population "is willing to settle, can settle, and dare to settle".

The relevant person in charge of the Planning Department of the National Development and Reform Commission said that it is necessary to adhere to the priority of stock and drive increment, promote the reform of the household registration system in a steady and orderly manner, promote the equalization of basic urban public services, improve the supporting policy system, and improve the quality of urbanization of the rural migrant population. Liberalize restrictions on settling in all but a few megacities, and promote the migration of agricultural migrants with stable employment and living in cities and towns in accordance with local conditions to settle down in cities, and enjoy the same rights and fulfill the same obligations as urban residents.

Focus on accelerating the urbanization of the rural migrant population, relaxing the opening up and easing of settlement restrictions, and recently introduced new policies in many places. On March 3, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province solicited opinions on the implementation of the local household registration system reform, and proposed to further liberalize the academic qualifications to settle down, and at the same time fully liberalize the conditions for settling in towns in Tonglu, Jiande and Chun'an counties (cities); In February, Shenzhen, Guangdong issued a document restarting the three-year suspension of the points entry policy; Sichuan recently proposed that it will adjust and optimize the settlement policy in Chengdu, and other cities and counties will completely cancel the settlement restrictions.

Improving the spatial layout of urbanization is another key point. Gao Guoli believes that enhancing the economic and population carrying capacity of urban agglomerations and central cities and other economically advantageous areas is not only in line with the law of population economic agglomeration and layout in the process of urbanization in the international process, but also in line with China's resource and environmental conditions and the trend of population economic changes. We should strengthen policy measures to promote the rational distribution of population economy among cities and promote the coordinated development of large, medium-sized and small cities and small towns. Promote the development of urban agglomerations by category, orderly cultivate modern metropolitan areas, transform the development mode of super-large megacities, improve the functional quality of large and medium-sized cities, enhance the vitality of small city development, and promote urbanization construction with county towns as important carriers.

Even if China is basically urbanized, about 4 million people will still live in rural areas. Experts remind that it is also necessary to improve the institutional mechanism and policy system for integrated urban and rural development, adhere to the principle of supplementing agriculture with work, taking urban and rural areas, taking counties as the basic unit, and the national urban-rural integrated development pilot zone as the breakthrough point, promoting the free flow of urban and rural factors and the rational allocation of public resources, and gradually narrowing the gap between urban and rural development and residents' living standards.

(People's Daily Overseas Edition, Qiu Haifeng)