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.

China Business News: I attended a meeting at Peking University interpreting the reports released during the annual sessions of the NPC & CPPCC, in which a scholar raised the idea that the core of urbanization was creating more jobs, and that the process of urbanization is the process of better meeting the needs of the new labor force. What is your understanding of this, Vice Minister Xu, and how is employment going to meet the people's needs?

Xu Xianping: I will leave questions on employment to Vice Minister Yang Zhiming.

Yang Zhiming: China is a country with rich labor resources and it is a major country for agricultural labor transfer. It is also a large country of rural migrant workers with Chinese characteristics. Under the guidance of the new urbanization plan, we will focus on guiding rural migrant workers to seek outside employment in an orderly manner, encouraging them to seek employment in nearby areas, and supporting them in returning to their hometowns to establish their own businesses. At present, the total number of rural migrant workers heading to cities for employment and business is growing, but the growth rate is declining and the places they choose is changing, which means that the number of rural migrant workers will become limited. From now on, rural migrant workers may have difficulty finding employment, while some big cities and enterprises may have a lack of rural migrant workers. The lack of general workers is due to the limited rural labor force, while the lack of skilled workers demonstrates a lack of skilled rural migrant workers. The difficulties faced by both rural migrant workers and enterprises are caused by the market.

When we carry out the new urbanization plan, we should, first of all, enhance skills training for rural migrant workers to address the lack of skilled workers. Second, we should develop tertiary industry, small and medium-sized enterprises and labor-intensive industries, to resolve the ever-growing demands of rural migrant workers. Third, we should support rural migrant workers with resources to return to their hometowns to start businesses. We call those who come back to China to establish their businesses after studying abroad "overseas returnees." Similarly, we may also call these people "city returnees," who obtain skills, amass capital, know the basics about marketing, have the guts to establish their own businesses and harbor an emotional affiliation to the countryside and then come back to their hometowns after living in the city. Fourth, we should develop the role of the nationwide employment information network to handle information sharing in cross-region employment for rural migrant workers. Overall, the transfer of the rural labor force with Chinese characteristics is employment-driven, preserves ownership of land, and is settling down step by step. We will further carry out our work concerning employment and entrepreneurship for rural migrant workers in the process of promoting the new urbanization in China. Thank you.

Xu Xianping: Let me add one thing. The process of urbanization entails non-agricultural industries and the rural population moving to cities and towns, along with the development of industrialization. I will demonstrate this with two figures. China grew into the second largest economy in the world, with close to double-digit growth for the past thirty strong years since reform and opening up. What was the urbanization rate in 1978？17.9 percent. How many people lived in the urban areas back then? 170 million. Now that number has grown to 730 million. We can see that when we grow our economy, we also create more jobs and concentrate the population.