Li: China to pursue “new urbanisation”

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From Xinhua:

To maintain China’s economy at a medium-to-high growth speed and upgrade it to the medium-to-high end, China must bring the “new-type urbanization” program, a strong engine, into full play, said Li at a meeting on urbanization.

In March, China’s State Council unveiled the New-Type Urbanization Plan for the 2014-2020 period in an effort to steer the country’s urbanization onto a human-centered and environmentally friendly path.

New-type urbanization can not only help narrow the rural-urban gap, promote agricultural modernization and increase farmers’ production and income, but also help expand consumption, boost investment, spur new industries and unleash domestic demand potentials, Li said.

In pushing forward urbanization, different regions should adjust their policy measures to local conditions and new policies should be first implemented on a pilot basis, he said.

The premier also stressed the tasks of including hundreds of millions of migrant workers into urban housing and social security system, and accelerating the renovation of slums in cities.

Slowing the economy to 5-6%, building soft infrastructure like social security and education, plus public housing to raise living standards and access to services as well as moving up the value-chain. All appropriate if China is to escape the middle-income trap by rebooting productivity growth:

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Great for China. Great for the world. Terrible for Australia, which yoked its wagon to the old growth model.

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About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.