Equal modernization fruits for urban, rural residents: Xi

The Communist Party of China (CPC) will promote the urban-rural integration drive so as to ensure that rural residents equally share the benefits of modernization, said Xi Jinping when explaining a key document on reform.[special report]

Policies should be improved to ensure urban development facilitate rural progress, and agriculture and industry benefit each other, according to a decision on major issues concerning comprehensively deepening reforms, approved by the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee on Nov. 12.

Entrusted by the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, Xi, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, explained the decision at the session. His speech was published on Friday.

Xi stressed that the imbalance between urban and rural development is an obvious conflict in the country's economic and social progress as well as a major barrier for the cause to build a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way and push forward socialist modernization.

"The urban-rural dual structure hasn't changed fundamentally, and the widening gap between urban and rural development hasn't been reversed. To solve these problems, urban-rural integration must be pushed forward," Xi said.

Reform measures newly approved include promoting family operation as the basis for agricultural businesses, encouraging family ranches, farmer cooperatives and rural companies to manage rural lands, guiding industrial and commercial fund toward modern farming and plantation businesses in rural areas.

Farmers' rights to contract and manage land and their real right to use their housing lands will be better protected while the mortgage and transfers of farmer's residential houses will be discreetly and steadily implemented as a trial program, according to Xi.

The reform also aims to ensure that migrant workers receive equal income as their urban counterparts and people in rural areas equally share the benefits from the incremental values of land, Xi said.

Under the urban-rural integration drive, educational resources will be evenly distributed; pension, medical insurance and basic living insurance programs will be coordinated, and basic social services in cities and towns will cover all migrant workers from rural areas, Xi added.