Before this year's Chinese Spring Festival, Li Huaifa moved into a new apartment and left behind a damp, shabby shanty, where he had lived for more than 40 years.

 

Li, 80, and his wife were delighted at the improved living conditions as they bought the 45 square-meter property for only a few thousand yuan.

 

Like any other residents in the shantytown in Fushun city in northeast China's industrial Liaoning Province, Li could not afford a new house due to his low family income of 300 yuan (about US$37.3) per month.

 

To help them solve housing difficulties, the Chinese central government, together with the local government, invested a huge amount of money in building free or low-priced apartments for hundreds of thousands of the urban poor.

 

A total of 335,000 such households have moved into new homes after 7.65 million square meters of shantytowns were demolished in Liaoning, said Wang Zhenggang, director of the Provincial Construction Bureau.

 

The province started its renovation program of shantytowns covering an area of more than 50,000 square meters in 2005, which is expected to finish by the end of this year and will improve greatly the housing conditions of its 844,000 poor urban residents.

 

The shantytowns to be renovated this year cover an area of 8.48 million square meters in 11 cities, said Li Jia, vice governor of Liaoning, adding that most of them, built in the 1950s or 1960s for miners, lack basic living conditions like running water and heating facilities.

 

Governments at various levels will pay for most of the building expenses. The central government and provincial government alone will invest 3.93 billion yuan (about US$488.2 million) in the renovation program in the coming two or three years.

 

The relocated residents pay small amounts of money for their new houses. If the floor space is the same as their shanties, it is free. Any area over it has to be bought at a third or half of the market price, said Wang.

 

The government will also provide low-rent housing for those who could not even afford low-priced apartments.

 

"We also intentionally locate factories near their communities, so that finding jobs is easier," said the vice governor, adding that more hospitals and schools would also be built nearby to provide them access to basic services.

 

China's northern province of Shanxi, a major coal production base, has also announced plans to renovate its huge area of shantytowns around large coal producing companies during the coming five years. Around 256,524 people are expected to benefit from the massive project.

 

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said at the ongoing session of the National People's Congress (NPC) that the country will work to narrow the widening gap between its rich and poor.

 

Economists believe China's top leadership is determined to spread the benefits of the country's galloping growth to all its citizens, including providing them with affordable housing, education and medical services.

 

(Xinhua News Agency March 8, 2006)