The Paper's reporter Fan Shengtao
The county is an important part of China's urban system, a key support for the integration of urban and rural development, and of great significance for promoting the construction of new urbanization and building a new type of urban-rural relationship between workers and peasants. Recently, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the Opinions on Promoting the Urbanization Construction with County Towns as an Important Carrier (hereinafter referred to as the Opinions). The "Opinions" require adhering to the people-centered promotion of new-type urbanization, respecting the law of county development, making up for the shortcomings of county towns according to local conditions, improving the quality of county development, and better meeting the needs of farmers to find employment and settle down in county towns and the production and life needs of county residents.
The "Opinions" also made it clear that adhering to the "one county, one policy" to prevent blind duplication of construction, at the same time will promote the pilot first, reasonably grasp the timing, rhythm and steps of county construction, take the lead in promoting the county to make up for shortcomings in the demonstration area, refine the construction task, innovate the policy support mechanism and project investment and operation mode, enhance the comprehensive carrying capacity of the county, and make substantive progress as soon as possible.
After the introduction of this important document, some people believe that in the context of the slowdown in the growth rate of external demand and the urgent need to expand domestic demand at home, the county is regarded as a new growth momentum for China's economy. The question that arises is how to divide and cooperate between the county and the urban agglomeration that has been the main body of urbanization for many years in the future urbanization. Another example is the "Opinions" to establish a diversified and sustainable investment and financing mechanism. Eligible public welfare projects can be supported through investment in the central budget and local government special bonds, does this mean that the special debt funds will be moderately inclined to the county? Some people also worry that the urbanization currently promoted with county towns as an important carrier will lead to new polarization within the county, and resources and population will be concentrated in specific areas of county towns, ignoring the development of other organized towns.
On the above issues, The Paper recently interviewed Feng Kui, a researcher at the China Center for Urban and Small Town Reform and Development and deputy director of the Central Economic Commission of the China Democratic League.
Feng Kui, researcher at the China Center for Urban and Small Town Reform and Development and deputy director of the Central Economic Commission of the China Democratic League
The Paper: What is the relationship between urbanization with counties as an important carrier and the urbanization strategy of metropolitan areas and urban agglomerations in the past?
Feng Kui: Recently, there have been views that the general direction of China's urbanization has changed, and I think this is a misreading. To be precise, the high-quality development of urbanization requires various spatial carriers to "have their own beauty" and finally achieve "beauty and commonality". The document emphasizes that the county town is a key carrier, not a substitute for other subjects or carriers.
Ten years ago, I studied the county economy and county development, and then I studied urban agglomerations, metropolitan areas, and so on. I think these spaces deserve long-term attention and continuous tracking. The development of urbanization is gradually moving towards coordination in space, which is a process of continuous optimization and adjustment.
First, the general trend of urbanization has not changed. Urban agglomerations are the main body of China's urbanization. China's 19 urban agglomerations and more than 40 metropolitan areas, both internal and external, account for more than 70% of the total population and economic share, and will increase in the future. Second, the role of the county town needs to be further increased, and the uniqueness of the county town is that it has a variety of functions and functions such as connections, platforms, bridges and so on in urban and rural development. Therefore, the development of counties and towns is not only the task of urbanization, but also the requirement of rural revitalization. Third, in previous years, resource elements were more concentrated in central cities and urban areas. The per capita fixed investment in municipal public utilities in the county is only equivalent to 1/2 of the urban areas at the prefecture level and above, and there are shortcomings in medical care, pension, garbage and sewage treatment, public toilets, logistics facilities, etc. The county can form an effective investment and stimulate demand, which is now the construction direction that all aspects can see accurately, and it is worth following up with social investment. Fourth, the county seat is a dotted distribution. Some are within the urban agglomeration, and some are far away from the urban agglomeration. Urban agglomerations and county seats have their own space, status and role, and cannot be replaced by each other.
The Paper: In the past, China's urbanization took the large urban agglomeration as the main development path, but now it is necessary to turn to the county economy, especially the way of local urbanization, what is the carrier for realizing local urbanization? In addition, how should the land market be reformed from the perspective of factor marketization in the development of counties?
Feng Kui: In recent years, there have been some new trends in the flow of migrant workers, and I have observed three aspects. First, the flow of people in the province has increased; second, the return from the eastern coast to the hometown in the central and western regions has increased; and the third is the increase in the choice of county seats. This means that, in general, the radius of urbanization is relatively narrow, and the weight of local urbanization is rising.
Our survey found that about 1/3 of migrant workers are willing to go to the county to find employment and settle down. Local urbanization nearby has many significance, such as helping to solve the problem of separated couples or left-behind children. In particular, under the circumstances of the epidemic and employment difficulties, the nearby local urbanization is similar to a sponge, temporarily absorbing and alleviating the employment pressure in urban and rural areas, and further demonstrating the resilience of China's regional economy.
The carriers of local urbanization are mainly suburbs, county seats, key towns and so on that are closer to home. The county is both an administrative center and an economic center, and there is still potential for absorbing the population transferred from agriculture. With the development of the county, it may become the choice for the urbanization of most of the rural transfer population in the future.
If the "land" of local urbanization is implemented in the county and county, it should not constitute a bottleneck constraint. In terms of the total proportion of construction land, cities account for 15%, formed towns account for 15%, and another 60% are village construction land. If the county town wants to develop, in terms of construction land, it should be able to ensure that it can be guaranteed through the balance of county-wide occupation and compensation. The key is to rationally arrange the planning indicators for new construction land, establish an intensive and efficient construction land utilization mechanism, and improve the volume ratio and output rate of unit land area for existing industrial land. In terms of urban and rural land use, in accordance with the unified deployment of the state, steadily and orderly promote the entry of rural collective operation construction land into the market, and promote the flow of urban and rural elements.
The Paper: Different counties and towns have different functional positioning, how to achieve targeted development and transformation for counties and population loss towns where population and industry flow? For example, what are the suggestions for infrastructure construction and public financial investment?
Feng Kui: Population is the biggest variable, followed by industry. Counties with population and industrial inflows should seize the opportunity to realize the comprehensive transformation of industry-population-space and move towards modern small and medium-sized cities. In particular, the counties within the metropolitan area should gradually integrate with the urban area and develop in the same city. It is necessary to cultivate and develop characteristic economies and pillar industries, strengthen the construction of regional logistics bases, form an influential professional market, improve the ability to absorb employment, and reflect characteristics and professionalism in one or more aspects such as advanced manufacturing, trade circulation, and cultural tourism. Pay attention to the complementary functions and industrial support with the neighboring large cities, and integrate into the big cities without losing themselves.
For counties with population and industrial outflow, the overall idea should be to slim down and strengthen the body, change the existing incremental planning thinking, strictly control the increment, revitalize the stock, guide the population and public resources to be moderately concentrated, and improve the quality. It is also necessary to pay more attention to highlighting characteristics, including characteristic industries, culture, characteristics, functions, etc., and strive to achieve small and beautiful, small and excellent, small and strong, and realize "small is also good".
For counties with population and industrial outflow, they should also distinguish functional positioning and give support to one city and one policy. For example, along the border counties, counties in ecological areas, etc., the population of these counties has decreased significantly. For these counties, if the state wants him to do something, he should give him support accordingly, and border counties need to further improve infrastructure, strengthen public services and border trade and other functions, enhance population agglomeration capacity and the ability to guard the border and fix the border, which cannot be solved through market-oriented methods.
The Paper: The Opinions propose that eligible public welfare projects can be supported through investment in the central budget and special bonds of local governments. Does this mean that special debt funds are tilted towards the county?
Feng Kui: In 2020, the investment in municipal public utilities in China's counties was 388.4 billion yuan, accounting for about 0.7% of the total fixed asset investment in the whole society, so this kind of funds invested in counties and towns, compared with urban areas, the role of making up for shortcomings is more obvious. At the same time, the county town is a gathering point for the county and for the vast rural areas, and it is a place where urban and rural elements, including population, meet, so it is relatively more efficient to increase the construction of the county than to bloom everywhere.
A mechanism for linking sub-provincial fiscal transfer payments with the urbanization of the agricultural transfer population is being established, so only if the county continues to absorb the population will the financial support increase.
Special debt funds will certainly increase their efforts to tilt towards the county seat. However, there are also many preconditions, and the basic condition is that for county public welfare projects that have certain benefits but are difficult to commercialize and comply with financing, and really need to borrow debts, in addition to the existing financial support channels, they can be supported by arranging local government special bonds and anti-epidemic special treasury bonds.
For counties with a large population outflow or a significant contraction trend, and because the debt ratio of these counties is high, it is not appropriate to blindly expand investment and focus on the revitalization and efficient use of existing resources.
The Paper: Based on the data of the Seven Census, from 2010 to 2020, the outflow of population from China's rural areas was 272 million, the floating population outside the province increased from 55 million in the "Six Pu" period to 82 million in the "Seven Pu", the floating population in the province increased from 78 million to 190 million, and the flow in the province was the main trend. In the flow of the province, the floating population in the province and county is 82 million, and the floating population outside the province and outside the county is 100 million. The flow outside the province and county is slightly larger in it, and it shows a rapid increase. Some scholars divide the current urbanization into local and off-site urbanization, how to promote these two models as a whole?
Feng Kui: The essence of the so-called overall promotion is that the government does its own thing, gives the choice to the peasants or the migrant workers themselves, and they will vote with their feet.
The difficulty of local urbanization is employment. The basic law of urban economics is that production activities and innovative activities are inseparable from a certain population size and population agglomeration. Compared with large and medium-sized cities, the key carriers of local urbanization, such as county towns and key towns, are relatively small in scale and relatively low in agglomeration. Statistically, there are more than 1,400 counties in our country, with an average population of 108,800. The county is highly differentiated, a number of county towns have less than 50,000 people, and there are only 10,000 or 20,000 people in smaller counties, some industries and industries are difficult to develop, and the employment type is small and the employment capacity is small.
The carrier of off-site urbanization is often a national-level urban agglomeration, especially the central city of the urban agglomeration - municipalities directly under the central government, provincial capitals, sub-provincial cities, etc., and it is the first choice for people to compete to enter. In these cities, the more potential and greater difficulties than employment are the difficulties of settling down. The first rule of housing is "housing", and housing consumption accounts for 40% of migrant workers' urban income. Housing pressure is high in the process of urban settlement, so we should help solve the housing needs of migrant workers through multiple channels. In addition, it is necessary to innovate training methods to improve the human capital of workers and enhance their employability.
Settlement is the assessment and verification of a place's comprehensive development ability and business environment. In this round of urbanization development, counties and large and medium-sized cities stand on the same platform to grab people, there are challenges and opportunities.
The Paper: Some people believe that one of the functions of urbanization is to increase the proportion of non-farm employment in the total labor force. Relevant studies have shown that at present, the growth of the county non-farm employment population is very slow, and even 28% of the county non-farm employment population is still decreasing, what measures are taken to increase the county non-farm employment population?
Feng Kui: In the context of the construction of a unified large market, the number of non-agricultural workers in some counties has decreased, and these people may go to more dynamic cities or urban areas, or go to other counties. In the medium to long term, it is expected that the number of non-agricultural workers in more than 70% of the counties will still decline.
To increase the non-agricultural employment population at the county level, the first is to base ourselves on the county seat and rely on urban and rural areas to develop a characteristic sixth economy, that is, an economy that integrates the first, second, and third industries. Second, we must promote urbanization with county towns as the key carriers, the population scale is stable and rising, and many industrial opportunities will breed. Third, we must rely on increasing the productivity of agricultural labor, so that more people will be "squeezed out" from agriculture and become non-agricultural population. Fourth, it is necessary to rely on collective economic organizations to increase openness, attract urban people and outsiders, and increase "living water at the source."
There are a lot of institutional innovations in the urban and rural fields that need to be promoted. The county economy is both open and closed. From closure to openness, there may be twists and turns in between, such as the decline in the number of non-farm payrolls. However, only by continuing reform and innovation, and eventually adding new elements will bring vitality, urban-rural integration can move towards the road of high-quality development.
Editor-in-Charge: Tian Chunling
Proofreader: Zhang Liangliang