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January 25, 2016

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Beijing sets cap on its population at 23m by 2020

The Beijing government plans to cap the population of the nation’s capital at 23 million by 2020.

In the next five years, authorities will continue to relocate people from downtown areas to suburban parts of the city, Mayor Wang Anshun said recently.

The permanent population within the downtown area is expected to decline by 15 percent from its level in 2014, he said.

The population ceilings have been set according to the maximum capacity of key resources such as water, according to sources.

Beijing has seen slower population growth in recent years as a result of the relocation of several industries. According to official figures, over the past five years, the average annual growth rate has been 2 percent.

The city had 21.7 million permanent residents at the end of 2015, and that will be capped at 22 million by the end of this year.

Over the past several decades, people from across the country have been attracted to Beijing due to its wealth of economic, cultural, educational and medical opportunities. As a result, the city has repeatedly failed to meet its population control targets.

“It has been difficult to simply force people out, without finding alternative destinations for them,” said Vice Mayor Li Shixiang, adding that the adoption of a coordinated development plan of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei has been helping to provide a solution.

Lu Yan, director of the Beijing Municipal Development and Reform Commission, said that the city’s authorities are committed to the relocation plan, and will continue to move people out of the downtown area and into new towns in outlying regions over the coming years.

About 300 businesses, mostly engaged in manufacturing, will be moved out of the city this year, while hundreds more will be shifted over the next five years, he said.

On a local level, authorities in Xicheng District will seek to reduce the population by 3 percent this year, while in Dongcheng District, resident numbers will be reduced by relocating hospitals and cutting the number of places at technical colleges.

Meanwhile, the city government intends to relocate some of its administrative departments from their downtown locations to new homes in suburban Tongzhou District in 2017, Wang said.




 

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