China Braces For Mass Urban Migration

SINO DAILY

"Lowered levels of oxygen can kill fish and other creatures in marginally aerated environments, and also preserve their carcasses from dismemberment and decay," said Retallack. Image credit: Janice McCafferty.

Beijing (AFP) Oct 12, 2005
Some 200 to 300 million farmers are expected to move to China's cities over the next 15 years, an unprecedented challenge that will require huge government assistance, state press said Wednesday.

"China's urbanization is a huge undertaking facing mankind in the 21st century," Tao Siliang, secretary of the China Mayor's Association told an international mayors' conference in southwestern Chongqing municipality.

"The urbanization of the Chinese people, who make up one-fourth of the world's population, must also be done while curbing poverty," he was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.

China's current urban population of 524 million is expected to grow to between 800 and 900 million by 2020, meaning between 13 and 18 million people will move to urban areas each year, Tao said.

He said China's urbanization rate was growing about one percent a year. The urbanization rate shot up from 18.9 percent in 1990 to 40 percent in 2004.

At the present pace, some 60 percent of the Chinese population will be living in cities and towns by 2020, with urban planners expected to develop several hundred new small cities, he said.

China invested some two trillion yuan (247 billion dollars) into cities between 1998-2004 to cope with the growing urbanization rate.

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U.S. Steps Up Pressure On China's Currency

Tokyo (UPI) Oct 11, 2005
Asia is first and foremost on the mind of U.S. Treasury John Snow this week as he kicked off his tour of the region with two days in Tokyo en route to China, where he will be until the weekend. The visit is ostensibly to take part in the Group of 20 finance ministers in Beijing Friday, but investors and analysts alike say it will focus mostly on his actions and words with his Chinese counterparts.

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