China extends rural reform and development in new Party document

PUSHING RURAL-URBAN INTEGRATION

While anti-corruption has always been the focus of the central government's work, the CPC has also pledged to balance urban and rural development and push the integration process of these areas.

Comprehensive planning would be conducted in fields including industrial development, infrastructure construction, public service as well as employment, with the needs of both rural and urban areas taken into account.

According to the new document, the government would endeavor to optimize industrial structure in rural areas, foster enterprises owned by villages and townships and channel capital and talent to the countryside.

The government would also help build the human resources market to help farmers go to cities for work, and migrants to start their careers in villages. It vowed to enhance safeguarding the rights of migrant workers, ensuring them the same wages and benefits in term of their children's education, public health and housing as citizens.

Li Chenggui, a research fellow with the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was supportive.

He said the Ministry of Agriculture statistics showed that in China there were currently about 126 million migrant workers away from their hometown and that most were having difficulty becoming residents of cities.

Migrant workers are always called a "vulnerable group" in facing wage arrears, a lack of social security and facing prejudice, among others. They are also blamed, usually unfairly, for causing social problems.

"We couldn't have their farmland-use rights effectively transferred if they don't become (urban) residents," Li said.