On March 8, when attending the 3rd Session of the 11th National People's Congress, Wang Ping, NPC deputy, Deputy Party Secretary and Major of Ganzhou, was invited to Xinhuanet to talk about issues on overall development of urban and rural areas and new urbanization construction in the special program of Xinhua Interview of "Two Sessions".
During the 40-munite live program from 15:00, Wang Ping talked about his understanding of the central decisions on coordinating urban-rural development, and the acts of Ganzhou to accelerate urban-rural integration and infrastructure construction, to turn the new generation of peasant-workers into citizens and to pay attention to urban sharing, harmony and convenience in pushing urban construction, etc. He also exchanged feelings and opinions with the host and netizens on how to balance the urban-rural development and promote the new urbanization in Ganzhou, an old revolutionary inland city.
In the interview, Wang Ping introduced the four "name cards" and the economic and social development of Ganzhou. He said that Ganzhou is a prefecture-level city with a large population, rich resources and relatively wide geographic area, and its rural population accounts for a relatively large proportion. In the past few years, the central committee, provincial committee and provincial government put the urban-rural overall development and new urbanization promotion into a very important strategic position. Ganzhou, like the others in Jiangxi Province and the whole country, has fast urbanization construction. Downtown Ganzhou has now an area of nearly 60 sq km and population more than 600,000. Ganzhou's urbanization rate reached 40% by the end of last year, up 5% than 2007. As the rapid progress of urbanization, Ganzhou's economic and social development entered into the best period in history. GDP and fiscal revenue climb onto new levels continuously.
Wang Ping said that, during the past few years, in accordance to the requirements of Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee and Jiangxi Government, Ganzhou adhered to strong promotion and high-level operation to tackle difficulties in capital, popularity, land and industry, etc. effectively. According to the requirements of "keep growth, protect people's livelihood, maintain stability and carry forward Jinggangshan Spirit", Ganzhou takes the projects and funds as an important breakthrough point in propelling the urbanization, such as to solve the funds problem in urban construction through multi-channel financing. In 2008 and 2009, over 10 billion yuan was financed in urban construction.
Wang said Ganzhou increased the resource value and popularity by building the city more delicate, beautiful and bright. It persisted on the promotion of both urban construction and industrial development, planned and built Ganzhou Hong Kong Industrial Park, Non-ferrous Industrial Park and other industrial parks, which laid a good foundation to attract migrant labor force.
When talking about that Ganzhou's urban development which not only supports the industrial development but also solves problems of people's livelihood, Wang Ping said Ganzhou Municipal Party Committee and Ganzhou Municipal Government pay high attention to taking the lead in Jiangxi Province to propose the idea of building New Citizen Apartment. The construction of New Citizen Apartment started in 2009, which solved the housing difficulty of new generation of 80' and 90' peasant-farmers and have outstanding urban workers to keep dreams and live and work happily in Ganzhou.
Looking forward the future of Ganzhou's urbanization development, Wang Ping said Ganzhou's urbanization development changes with each passing day and the mega city as the thoroughfare of Jiangxi, Fujian, Hunan and Guangdong provinces is under construction. Its goal is to build a mega city with 1 million population in 3-5 yeas, and a regional economic and cultural center in south Jiangxi with 200-300 sq km and 2-3 million population in 20 years or so.
(Special Correspondent Xu Jun, Li Guosheng, Chen Jicai)
