Presenters:

Xu Xianping, Vice Minister of the National Development and Reform Commission; Huang Ming, Vice Minister of Public Security; Liu Kun, Vice Minister of Finance; Yang Zhiming, Vice Minister of Human Resources and Social Security; Wang Shiyuan, Vice Minister of Land and Resources and Qi Ji, Vice Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development

Date:

March 19,2014

Introduction:

The press conference concerns the National New Urbanization Plan (2014-2020) which was issued on Sunday, March 16.

Financial Times: My question is in regards to the Qingdao Sinopec explosions. One reason cited for the accident was urbanization. As the city expands, nobody knows what kind of pipelines or equipment has been placed underneath its surface. In your planning, how will you deal with such issues? Because I am guessing that there are such problems in other cities besides Qingdao. I don't know which government department can give the answer.

Qi Ji: I'm not in charge of such projects and therefore may not be able to give you a very professional answer. As you already mentioned the Qingdao incident, I will discuss some of my opinions on the matter. I can say that many cities in China are developed and formed gradually, which means some of their infrastructure was initially built in the suburban areas of the city, such as sewage treatment plants or garbage landfills. However, as the city expands, plants and equipment, designed to remain outside the city, are now encircled by the newly expanding city areas and hence become part of the city's inner infrastructure.

Plus, there are a number of so-called "villages within a city," none of them deliberately built "inside" the city. They are just villages that were originally created outside the city and have gradually been surrounded by new city expansions -- hence becoming part of the inner city.

You also mentioned one heavy petrochemical enterprise just now. I actually have been there. The city just developed into a big one over the past decade. At first, the enterprise was indeed located on the outskirts of the city. During that particular process of a city's layout construction, it is a fact that some of these "outside" projects, including infrastructures and industry plants, have evolved into these city centers . Frankly speaking, they are not fit to be situated in the central area of a city, but this is just a matter of evolving progress -- and we do actually see such a development process taking place.

This time around, in the planning for the new type of cities and towns, we specifically propose a four-line control, including a green, blue, purple and yellow line. The green line stands for a green belt, the blue line ensures a water resource, the purple line signifies cultural relics protection and the yellow line controls infrastructure. Various infrastructures which belong to the yellow line control, including the petrochemical pipelines you mentioned, shall be strictly separated from a city's residential areas and administration areas. In the new plans, we must summarize the lessons we have learned, especially for those colleagues who will participate in city construction. They will know that no matter whether they see a yellow, green, blue, purple or the currently existing red line, these from the limitations that no city construction should go beyond.

Yang Zhiming: I want to add some words to the question regarding the home services industry. The Hong Kong reporter asked a good question. As Vice Minister Xu already said, the new type of urbanization is closely related to the expanding service industry and migrant workers are also closely related to the developing service industry. Nowadays, migrant workers are providing the city with an essential public service. For now, it remains very hard to find technicians in a city's production service and it is also hard to find home service workers.

According to statistics, there are some 20 million migrant workers living in China's cities. And there is still much room for home services, nursing home services, patient care services and community care services to grow. That is, after training the migrant workers, they would have to be willing to engage in these service industries and the families actually looking to hire, would have to be willing to employ them. This way, migrant workers will expand the home service industry in the new type of urbanization, will help raise employment rates, improve people's daily lives and promote domestic needs, as well as adjust the existing economic structures.

Guo Weimin: The Ministry of Construction (Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development) may establish one department solely responsible for city planning. If you are interested in the future, we will invite the relevant leaders and experts of the Ministry's City Planning Department to hold a press conference and briefing.