Rural areas in China's capital?are accelerating their
urbanization process in terms of economic growth, social
development, population quality, living standards of the people and
infrastructure.
According to the rural urbanization evaluation team under the
municipal statistical bureau, the process in Beijing's rural areas
was at a medium level.
Surveys done by the team showed that production mode and
livelihood of Beijing's rural dwellers exhibited an obvious trend
of urbanization. They do not rely mainly on earnings from farming
any longer, and they worked in enterprises and began to gain
salaries. According to the local statistical bureau, farmers' per
capita income topped 7,000 yuan (US$863) last year, of which more
than two thirds were salaries.
By the end of 2004, the penetration ratio of telephones, cell
phones and color TV sets had exceeded 100 percent for every 100
rural households in Beijing. They possessed 96 refrigerators, 96
washing machines, 26 microwave ovens, 47 air conditioners, 27
personal computers and eight motor vehicles.
The team also found that every farmer in Beijing's suburbs owned
34.2 square meters of housing on average and that the new medical
care system covered 71.9 percent of all farmers there.
At the end of last year, there were 15,000 kilometers of
highways in rural Beijing, per capita electricity consumption for
daily use stood at 1,067 kilowatts, and clean energy supply covered
60.9 percent of the rural households.
(Xinhua News Agency November 17, 2005)