China's urban economy has witnessed a significant development with the comprehensive strength in cities further strengthened since the 4th plenary session of the 13th Party Congress. The city construction has seen a development with every passing day and the city to play a role of more and more importance in the development of the national economy as a whole.
Since the beginning of 1990s, it has witnessed a bigger enhancement in China's urbanization level. According to the figures from the State Statistics Bureau, the number of cities at prefectural level has been increased from 188 to 269 within the 11 years fro 1990 to 2001, and the extra-large cities with a non-agricultural population of over one million increased from 31 to 41 in number.
The city-covered area has reached 4.089 million square kilometers, an increase of 2.192 million square kilometers as against that in 1990, an increase from 20 to 42.6 percent in proportion to the total Chinese territory on land. The townspeople in the year of 2001 took up some 37.7 percent of the total population in China, a proportion of 10.3 percentage points higher over that of 1990.
Along with the rapid development of the cities, they've become the major destinations for the workforce immigration from the countryside. According to the statistics by the Ministry of Public Security in 2001, the city absorption of the temporary inhabitants the country over accounted for some 47.443 million heads, a proportion of 8.5 percent of the whole city inhabitants in China.
In the course of city development, city-clusters round a large city and belts of cities have witnessed a further development. The remarkable ones are Beijing, Tianjin and Dalian round the Bohai Bay; the Yangtze River Delta city-clusters with Shanghai, Suzhou, Wuxi, Nanjing, Hangzhou and Ningbo as centers and the Pearl River Delta city-clusters round Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Dongguan and Zhongshan. These city-clusters see a higher level in urbanization with a relatively developed economy and complete infrastructure and facilities and so they've turned out to be the important motive force for the increase of national economy.
In the meanwhile when the urbanization level was being raised the economy in cities saw a rapid development with the economic structure tending for the better. In 2001, the total GDP of the cities above the prefectural level (excluding the counties under the jurisdiction of the prefectural city, the same hereafter) saw an increase RMB 67.08 million yuan in 1990 to RMB 550.57 million yuan in 2001. It is a rise of 3.9 times, an annual increase rate of 15.5 percent.
The year of 1990 saw the city-governed areas with their GDP overtaking 20 billion-yuan to include only four cities of Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Guangzhou, but the figure jumped to 45 in 2001, of which 9 cities witnessed their respective GDP to exceed 100 billion yuan.
The total GDP in China's urban areas averaged RMB18322.90 yuan per capita in 2001, a rise of 4.8 times that of 1990, namely 1.4 times over the national average.
The year of 1990 saw only four cities strike an average GDP of over RMB10000.00 yuan per head in China but towards 2001 the figure rose to 164, of which 58 cities reaped an average GDP of over RMB 20000.00 yuan.
With the city economic configuration adjusted the added value of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries in cities to reach RMB 263.07, 2743.23 and 2499.39 billion-yuan respectively, a respective 3.5, 4 and 6.7 times that of 1990. The composition ratio of the added value in the primary, secondary and tertiary industries was regulated from 6.6 to 60.4 to 33 in 1990 to a ratio of 4.8 to 49.8 to 45.4 in 2001.
(People's Daily November 12, 2002)
