The development of rural areas and urbanization should be closely linked and well coordinated, a veteran development strategist said yesterday.

 

Guo Shuqing, a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), said the building of the "new socialist countryside" and urbanization are two sides of the same coin.

 

Pursuing the two courses separately would not bring any change to rural areas; rather, it would lead to a waste in land and other resources, he said.

 

Guo, chairman of China Construction Bank (CCB), was a key architect of China's economic restructuring in the 1980s and 1990s and a prominent development strategy commentator after he became vice governor of the People's Bank of China in 2001. He took up the CCB post last year.

 

Guo said China's urbanization has been lagging behind economic development. Agriculture now accounts for a mere 12 percent of China's economic output, but about 60 percent of Chinese population are still farmers.

 

"The pace of urbanization must be accelerated," he said.

 

Urbanization needs a well-advised approach, Guo said. Rural areas that have become industrialized should follow the path of urban planning. This means they need adequate infrastructure, such as roads, electricity and sewage systems.

 

Otherwise, they would remain closed communities far away from modern life; and residents' lifestyle would stay unchanged even if they were financially better off, Guo said.

 

He cited Huaxi Village, in east China's Jiangsu Province, as an example.

 

The village has become one of China's richest through its industrial enterprises with 30 billion yuan (US$3.7 billion) in annual sales revenue. Villagers live in modern villa-style houses but it does not have an urban sewage disposal system.

 

On the other hand, not all villages should be equipped with urban infrastructure, he said.

 

"Decisions must first be made about which village would be urbanized," he said.

 

Building infrastructure in some remote, undeveloped areas would be very expensive; so people in those places should be relocated.

 

(China Daily March 6, 2006)