China to move 100 mn farmers to cities in urbanisation plan

China is set to embark on a massive urbanisation drive, as it plans to turn 100 million farmers into registered urban residents, encouraging them to buy city apartments to address a housing glut created by 'ghost cities'.
The plan to urbanise the farmers will be implemented from next year, said Xu Shaoshi, head of National Development and Reform Commission, the country's top economic planning body.
He, however, did not specify when the plan will be completed, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
China's housing market took a downturn in 2014 due to a weak demand and a supply glut. The cooling has continued into 2015, with sales and prices falling, and investments slowing.

Several media reports have highlighted the emergence of ghost cities, which are urban clusters with well-built infrastructure but no residents.
As China became world's second-largest economy, it achieved more than 55 per cent urbanisation in the last three decades, shedding its agrarian roots. Over 300 million people migrated from rural areas to newly-built cities to work during the period.

Chinese planners consider urbanisation an essential tool to address rural poverty. Chinese officials say urbanisation has helped alleviate poverty of more than 600 million people in the last three decades, still leaving out about 70 million below poverty line in far-off places.

The Central Economic Work Conference headed by President Xi Jinping, which concluded its meeting here this week identified cutting overcapacity, tackling debt overhang, destocking as the major tasks for 2016.
Attendees agreed that rural residents relocating to urban areas should be allowed to register as city residents, which would encourage them to buy property in cities, the report said.
Though nearly 55 per cent of China's population lives in cities, less than 40 per cent are registered urban residents.
Most of the 300 million migrant workers are denied "hukou" (official residence status), which means they are not entitled to equal employment rights and social security services, and their children are not allowed to be enrolled in city schools.

Without official resident status, the migrant workers don't have a sense of belonging in cities and buying urban houses has not been an attractive option.
According to a government plan published last year, China aims to raise the number of registered urban residents to around 45 per cent by 2020.
China will make more effort to improve city clusters in the eastern region, and foster new clusters and key regional cities in central and western regions, said a statement issued yesterday after the Central Urban Work Conference.