China’s “National Plan on New Urbanization”
Newly elected Prime Minister Li Keqiang has ordered implementation of the “National Plan on New Urbanization,” which aims to have over 60 percent of the entire population living in cities by 2020 and to initiate a new round of economic growth. [See the figure.] In 2013, China had 712 million people living in cities, with around 600 million still living in rural areas. The main aim of the urbanization plan is to coordinate development of cities and small towns, based on major city clusters, to accommodate 100 million new urban residents by 2020.