With the urbanization process in the next five years, northeast China's Liaoning Province will have 20 more medium and small cities, experts said Friday.

Ten medium cities with a population of 200,000 to 500,000 each and 10 small cities with a population of 100,000 to 200,000 each will come into being, said experts who drew up the province's 11th five-year program (2006-2010).

All the new cities will grow from small cities and towns, and most of them are in coastal areas, they said.

The province will increase the urbanization rate to 63 percent in the next five years.

Some of the new cities may be upgraded to county-level cities in the future, the experts said.

(Xinhua News Agency January 23, 2006)