Economist calls for market-driven urbanization

BEIJING -- China's leading economist and advocate of reform Wu Jinglian has called for a new model of urbanization that is market driven and more efficient, the Shanghai Securities News reported Tuesday.

In an article published in the paper Wu said China must avoid urbanization that heavily stresses developing land and expanding city size.

China's old mode of urbanization was characterized by high population density that generated too many negative effects, such as serious traffic jams and great difficulties in providing security and public health services.

In Wu's opinion, the outdated model of progress misguided urbanization toward simple land development and pursuit of large city scale, resulting in frequent demolitions and relocations that violated public interests, and leading to an excessive concentration of resources in a few megacities.

The finance, service and manufacturing industries all crowded into these megacities, attracting millions of "non-urbanized" migrant workers Wu said.

Meanwhile, lower investment efficiency and rapid expansion of city scale triggered large debts at all levels of government and high risks to the country's financial stability.

To solve the problems, he urged repairs of systematic flaws, such as cutting down administrative forces in the market and integrating the nationwide labor, land and capital markets for better use of resources.

He added that the country should give full play to the market's "decisive" role in allocating resources as described in the communique published on November 12 after the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee.