China is committed to deepening reform to advance integrated development between urban and rural areas, which is an inevitable requirement in pursuing the Chinese modernization.
An important resolution on further deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization was adopted earlier this month at the third plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee. It has made systematic deployment for promoting integrated urban-rural development while defining key tasks of rural reform.
China is a populous country that is home to over 1.4 billion people, and some 500 million of them are living in rural areas. President Xi Jinping has stressed that no matter how far the country goes down the industrialization and urbanization path, it's an objective law that urban and rural areas will coexist for a long time.
The resolution stated that integrated urban and rural development constitutes the centerpiece of the Chinese modernization. Presently, China has reached a critical juncture of removing the urban-rural dual structure and it bears far-reaching significance to reshape the urban-rural relationship and uphold the integrated urban-rural development path.
"The resolution proposed to promote integrated urban-rural development, which means promoting new industrialization, new urbanization and all-round rural revitalization in a coordinated way. Efforts should be made to break the urban-rural dual structure, bridge the urban-rural gap and promote their common prosperity and development by comprehensively integrating urban and rural planning, construction and governance," said Tu Shengwei, researcher with the Academy of Macroeconomic Research under National Development and Reform Commission:
In pursuit of that goal, experts noted that it’s necessary to facilitate the flow of production factors between urban and rural area to make resource allocation as efficient and productive as possible, which also has great significance for the high-quality development of Chinese economy and fostering a new development pattern.
"Judging from practices, if the institutional barriers hindering the equal exchange and two-way flow between urban and rural area are effectively removed, more development factors and services will flow freely to rural areas, which will further boost the vitality of agricultural and rural development and inject fresh dynamism into the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas," said Tu.
China sees pressing need to reshape urban-rural relationship with vigorous integrated development: expert
