This Day, That Year

Item from March 28, 1988, in China Daily: A construction team work on top of an uncompleted building in Haikou, Hainan province. About 5 million farmers have moved into China’s cities to work on construction teams, and they account for about half of the country’s construction workers.

China aims to bring its urbanization rate to 60 percent by 2020, which means 100 million migrant workers will settle in cities in the Central and Western regions during the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20), according to the State Council, China’s Cabinet. To achieve the goal, the central government is scrapping the division between rural and urban residency.

The move will see the end of a ban on hukou, also called household registration, in small cities and gradually ease big cities’ control of registration, although population numbers in megacities will still be strictly controlled.

By 2014, as many as 30 provinces and regions had published plans for reform, with some issuing clear timetables for change, and local governments have pledged to provide all the residents with the same level of public services, providing they meet the registration requirements.

China’s urbanization rate hit 57.4 percent in the past year, with 792 million urban residents, according to official data.

The urbanization drive will boost domestic consumption and investment in the future, analysts said.