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Call for new residence system
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CHINESE lawmakers are calling for a new registered permanent residence system adaptable to the emerging market economy in China, replacing the existing one that restricts people's freedom to migrate, and divides the country into two distinctive urban and rural worlds.
The lawmakers, who are in Beijing for the annual session of the Ninth National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, said the existing household registration system is no longer suitable to the changing situation characterized by massive migration of workers and professionals.
The existing system confines urban residents to cities and towns with housing, medical, education and employment benefits, and farmers to rural areas. Under the system, farmers are denied the benefits available to their urban counterparts and are only permitted to seek underpaid, dirty jobs shunned by permanent urban residents.
In his proposal submitted to the session this week, Wu Minghui, an NPC deputy, calls for the enactment of a law on residence registration adaptable to a market economy, securing both urban and rural residents the freedom to migrate, and equal opportunities for employment, education and housing.
Economists say a free flow of human resources is a natural prerequisite for a market economy, and it will hinder regional economic integration if the artificial dividing line between rural and urban China is not removed.
Without economic integration on a national scale, China would not be able to meet the challenge of global economic integration, they said.(SD-Xinhua)
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