China is ready to better plan its future construction of small towns
and villages, in a bid to save more farmlands, upgrade rural infrastructure and
protect farmers' interests.
Currently, the country has finished planning of 81 per cent of its small
towns and 62 per cent of its villages.
Hoping to preserve precious land, the Ministry of Construction said Thursday
it has moved to set up policies that would lead to better design.
The country so far has 42,620 small towns in which 191 million people live.
There are also roughly 3.6 million villages.
The ministry said in a press release that per-capita housing has grown to
25.8 square metres as more than 600 million square metres are newly built every
year.
Among these new residence, 67 per cent last year were multiple-storey homes.
At the same time, 490 million square metres of production buildings and 370
million square metres for public facilities have been finished in the past four
years.
As part of the plan, half of the people living in villages and small towns
now have access to tap water, while electricity reached almost all towns in the
country and 88 per cent of villages.
Some farmers even have access to gas.
However, while the government's efforts are aimed at preserving arable land,
officials at the ministry also warned that indiscriminate construction in small
towns and villages is becoming a serious problem.
Some local governments consider new construction as a symbol of modernization
and an asset to their career success. Many construction projects are unrealistic
or of poor quality while taking up too much farmland and hurting farmers'
interests.
"Construction planning in towns and villages should be based on the available
resources and surrounding environment," said the ministry.
Besides unreasonable development, unbalanced attention given to cities and
villages is another barrier to development.
Although village development is a key item of the government's working
agenda, cities have traditionally received much more attention, the ministry
said.
In February this year, the National Development and Reform Commission and the
Ministry of Construction chose 1,887 towns as models for other towns nationwide.
Some small towns in the Yangtze River Delta, Zhujiang River Delta and
Jiaodong Peninsula are very well developed and becoming superstars of
countryside development.
