China has a small proportion of large cities, expert
Posted on Nov-22-2007· by china investor
Chinanews, Beijing, Nov. 22 – At present, large cities account for only a small proportion in the total number of Chinese cities. China has a large number of small and medium cities. However, these cities are not very well developed. At present, some local governments were making efforts to develop the scale of some medium cities. It is hoped that with several years of hard work, some medium-sized cities might grow into large cities in years to come, said Wang Juelin, vice director at the Policy Research Center under the Ministry of Construction, on Wednesday.
He made the statement while attending a Sino-German City Management Forum held in Beijing.
In China, urban construction work started at a relatively later time. For a long time, China had focused its attention on the construction of a few big cities. As a result, the distribution of big, medium and small cities is in an unbalanced state. In China, many large cities are centered in the eastern and northern parts of the country, with very few in the middle and western regions. Although China boasts a large number of small and medium cities, many of them do not develop very well, Wang said.
At present, China has 656 cities that are subdivided into districts, 48 metropolitan cities, 65 large cities, 222 medium cities, 325 small cities and 20,600 incorporated towns. Experts say that Chinese metropolitan cities with a population of around one to two million develop best in regard to their social, economic and environmental construction; for large cities with a population of 500,000-1,000,000, they are in the middle level in their city construction; for small cities with a population under 200,000, their city construction is the worst among the three groups.
In terms of quantity, the medium and small cities should be considered as the mainstream in China’s economic development. The prosperity of Chinese economy might, to a large extent, rely heavily on the development of these small and medium cities. At present, some local governments are trying to develop some middle-sized cities in their regions by providing some preferential policies, increasing the input to upgrade city infrastructure and placing some key industrial sectors in these cities. It is expected that, with these efforts, some middle-sized cities will become a member of the large cities group in China in the new few years, Wang said.
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