Before this year's Chinese
Spring Festival, Li Huaifa moved into a new apartment and left
behind a damp, shabby shanty, where he had lived for more than 40
years.
Li, 80, and his wife were delighted at the improved living
conditions as they bought the 45 square-meter property for only a
few thousand yuan.
Like any other residents in the shantytown in Fushun city in
northeast China's industrial
Liaoning Province, Li could not afford a new house due to his
low family income of 300 yuan (about US$37.3) per month.
To help them solve housing difficulties, the Chinese central
government, together with the local government, invested a huge
amount of money in building free or low-priced apartments for
hundreds of thousands of the urban poor.
A total of 335,000 such households have moved into new homes
after 7.65 million square meters of shantytowns were demolished in
Liaoning, said Wang Zhenggang, director of the Provincial
Construction Bureau.
The province started its renovation program of shantytowns
covering an area of more than 50,000 square meters in 2005, which
is expected to finish by the end of this year and will improve
greatly the housing conditions of its 844,000 poor urban
residents.
The shantytowns to be renovated this year cover an area of 8.48
million square meters in 11 cities, said Li Jia, vice governor of
Liaoning, adding that most of them, built in the 1950s or 1960s for
miners, lack basic living conditions like running water and heating
facilities.
Governments at various levels will pay for most of the building
expenses. The central government and provincial government alone
will invest 3.93 billion yuan (about US$488.2 million) in the
renovation program in the coming two or three years.
The relocated residents pay small amounts of money for their new
houses. If the floor space is the same as their shanties, it is
free. Any area over it has to be bought at a third or half of the
market price, said Wang.
The government will also provide low-rent housing for those who
could not even afford low-priced apartments.
"We also intentionally locate factories near their communities,
so that finding jobs is easier," said the vice governor, adding
that more hospitals and schools would also be built nearby to
provide them access to basic services.
China's northern province of
Shanxi, a major coal production base, has also announced plans
to renovate its huge area of shantytowns around large coal
producing companies during the coming five years. Around 256,524
people are expected to benefit from the massive project.
Chinese Premier Wen
Jiabao said at the ongoing session of the National People's
Congress (NPC)
that the country will work to narrow the widening gap between its
rich and poor.
Economists believe China's top leadership is determined to
spread the benefits of the country's galloping growth to all its
citizens, including providing them with affordable housing,
education and medical services.
(Xinhua News Agency March 8, 2006)