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In the heart of China, small cities see big changes

By Johanna Yueh: 0 Comments Print E-mail China.org.cn, March 14, 2011

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Construction on the Jiangbei Industrial Cluster Zone has begun, with residential apartment buildings for relocated farmers being built first. [Wang Wei/China.org.cn]

A vast barren land of dirt in Hexian County, which sits on the eastern edge of the city of Chaohu next to the Yangtze River, takes a good half-hour to reach from the city proper by car, beyond small rural towns and farmland. Construction fences block off one small corner of this newly razed field. Inside are rows of steel rods, cranes and a slew of construction workers milling about. Near the entrance, giant boards explain the plan to visitors: the Jiangbei Industrial Cluster Zone, one of the two provincial government-administered regions in the Wanjiang plan. A 200-square-kilometer tract of land has been cleared, part of which used to belong to 1,534 farmers and their families. These residents have been put in temporary housing in the city and will soon be able to purchase apartments in a relocation area inside the zone.

This was the area we saw, in the first stages of construction, a special quarter for the farmers who gave up their land. It will occupy a small corner of the southern district in the Jiangbei zone, which will give the farmers access to resources in the neighboring Shenxiangzhen District of Chaohu.

Bi Xiaobin, the director of the Jiangbei zone's administrative committee [Wang Wei/China.org.cn]

"They were all very happy to move," Bi Xiaobin, the director of the Jiangbei zone's administrative committee, reassured me when I asked how the farmers felt about losing their land and way of life. (I was unable to ask any farmers directly.) They were compensated — fairly, of course — for their land. Bi would not specify a rate but said it varied depending on the kind of crops the farmers produced. In all, each family received enough to buy one or two apartments in the relocation area, which will be sold at special "preferential" prices to the farmers.

The administrative committee has a mandate to complete the apartments within 18 months of purchasing the land from the farmers, Bi told me. The relocation area should be completed and ready for move-in by spring next year.

All across the Yangtze River Delta region, tens of thousands of farmers and their families have given up their land for these new industrial transfer zones. In all, 76,000 square kilometers of land, which is home to 30.58 million people are dedicated to this economic restructuring plan. Most of the wealth in Anhui is already concentrated in this region: In 2008, it generated 66 percent of the province's GDP with 45 percent of the province's population.

The 10 cities — Chaohu, Wuhu, Tongling, Chizhou, Hefei, Chuzhou, Lu'an, Ma'anshan, Anqing and Xuancheng — are each in charge of their own demonstration areas, but they all have similar approaches and strategies. Each is "opening more" to attract more investment from home and abroad, especially from large multinational corporations, with a spate of preferential policies for investments, taxes and land purchases. Local officials are also exhorting banks to be more flexible when it comes to providing loans to interested companies.

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