Chinese vice premier urges progress on urban village renovation in megacities

BEIJING -- Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, attended on Friday a teleconference on advancing the work of urban village renewal in megacities.

Actively and steadily advancing the renewal of urban villages will help eliminate the shortcomings of urban construction and governance, improve the living environment and conditions of residents, expand domestic demand, and optimize the real-estate structure, according to the vice premier.

He called for coming up with new ideas and new ways to solve the problems, including how to calculate gains and losses, how to use money, how to levy land, and how to settle people and industries.

He stressed that the renewal of urban villages is a complex and arduous systematic project, which should be classified and transformed in different ways, such as dismantling and rebuilding, renovating and upgrading, and combining the two approaches.

He further highlighted overall planning, public infrastructure construction, and the inheritance and protection of historical and cultural heritage during the renewal work.

Relevant departments should improve the policy system as soon as possible, and relevant city governments should earnestly fulfill their principal responsibilities, strengthen their leadership, and improve working mechanisms, so as to advance the urban village renewal work to achieve effective results.