Recently the
Beijing blue paper "2005 China Capital Development Report" was jointly released in
Beijing by China Academy of Social Sciences and
Beijing Academy of Social Science. According to the blue paper analysis Beijing's GDP will increase by about 10 percent while prices of coal, electricity, oil and transportation will continue to rise.
GDP will increase by about 10 percent
According to the blue paper estimates, Beijing's GDP will increase by some 10 percent this year, two percentage points lower than that of last year. Three factors attribute to Beijing's economic growth. Firstly the construction of venues for the 2008 Olympics throughout the year will be carried out in an all round way with more Olympic economic effectiveness; secondly a batch of key projects involving Benz autos, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), color liquid crystal display will bring along the rapid development of the economy in Beijing, thirdly the two second stages of the agreements of WTO and CEPA will push Beijing's upgrade in the tertiary industry. According to the promise made when its entry into WTO the service trade area in China will open to the outside world completely for the coming two years. According to the second-stage CEPA agreement the rules for 11 service trade industries including lawyers, banks, medical care and securities will be broadened while another 8 service areas such as information technology, occupation introduction and patent agents will also be opened. All these will become a "propellant¡± for the development of the service industries in Beijing.
According to the blue paper forecasts
Beijing will maintain two-digital economic growth before 2008 with the support of the construction of venues for the Olympics as well as the construction of major urban infrastructure and subways. There will appear a wave trough in Beijing's economic growth after the Olympics, especially the disappearance of Olympic effect. Up to now, no cities can avoid such economic decline in the world after holding Olympic games.
Prices for oil products continue to rise
Commodity prices in
Beijing will increase by 3 percent this year, the blue paper looking at the development of the Chinese capital predicts. Shortages in coal, electricity and product oil as well as traffic communication will be relaxed and the prices for them will be further increased. And there will be price rises in public service sectors.
It is estimated that prices of agricultural products will be kept stable at the present level before the coming harvest in Beijing. The price rises of grain products caused the price rises of fodder. Due to this, the prices of poultry and its products were increased in a considerably bigger margin in 2004. The price rise will continue for a period of time this year as the price-rising trend has not finished yet. In addition, the construction of venues for the 2008 Olympics throughout the year will push up prices of building materials.
The hot commodity goods including autos, home electric appliances and telecommunications products will continue to drop due to intensive market competitiveness and technological progress.
Supply of medium- and low-grade houses will be increased
The blue paper pointed out that the present real estate market in
Beijing has not been saturated and there exists a big room for requirements. It is calculated that by 2010 the average per capita living space for urban dwellers will reach 25 square meters with additional requirement of the floor space of more than 70 million square meters. When considering the factors of house removal, dilapidated building transformation and urban population increase more houses will be needed. Apart from this, with the start of Olympic economy and the CEPA's coming into operation, the demand for houses in
Beijing by people from Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, foreigners as well as citizens from other provinces and cities will be increased in a big margin.
With the start of the construction of venues for the Olympics
Beijing will spend an investment of 180 billion yuan in urban traffic infrastructure. The faraway areas from the city proper or highways such as the fourth and fifth ring roads and the Bawangfen-Tongzhou subway line will become hot spots for the development of real estate.
The paper pointed out at the meantime there exist problems of high proportion in real estate investment and unstable growth foundation. In the first 11 months of last year,
Beijing completed an investment of more than 100 billion yuan in real estate, accounting for 56.9 percent of social fixed capital investment. This year macro-control measures will be applied to the investment in real estate development rationally by ways of land and finance so as to reduce the ratio of real estate investment. The high-grade residential projects including mansions and villas will be subject to control while the supply of medium- and low-grade residential projects will be increased.
Migrant workers
Nearly 3 percent of the migrant workers do not sign labor contracts. The paper pointed out that there are more than 2 million permanent migrant workers living in Beijing. They mainly work in five industries of construction, lodging and catering, wholesaling and retailing, manufacturing and residential service.
According to the survey, the ratio of the contracts signed between migrant workers and enterprises is around 73 percent. That is to say there are less than 30 percent of migrant workers without signed labor contracts. In the remote suburban counties in
Beijing the ratio is only 30 percent of the farmer-turned-laborers signing contracts with enterprises. As for the issue of migrant laborers, the paper says more than half of them believe
Beijing is a tolerant city for various groups and cultures, according to the survey. Meanwhile 61 percent of those surveyed said "Beijing permanent permit" is the main reason for the difference between the migrant workers and Beijingers and 36.6 said "no understanding of the city due to its vast area" is another reason for them to live in
Beijing without sense of security. Nearly half of them expressed that if
Beijing is developed well they will stay here, different from those earliest migrant workers who would go home after earning enough money.
Children of migrant workers
It's hard to enter into public school.
The paper published the survey on the education conditions of the migrant workers' children in suburban areas of Beijing. Though there is a stipulation that the public school will charge the floating children the same fees as they charge the
Beijing children and the floating children will be exempt from paying transient charges in line with the required conditions. However the number of the children of migrant workers in the schools for the migrant workers' children is not declined due to the reduced fees charged by the public school.
The main reason is as follows: the unregistered fees are high for the public schools.In addition to the educational charges stipulated by educational departments there are fees including lunch, dress, insurance, spring tour, network and class.
Apart from this the parents of the transient students should show their "three certificates" (parents' temporary permit, labor permit and custodian permit from the children's birth place police station), then the temporary permit can be offered to them by the neighborhood committee. Most of the schoolmasters recognize that in fact it is difficult to have three permits in accordance with the strict requirements. Especially in the poor group of floating people their children can only enter into the school for migrant schools due to the lack of the three permits instead of public schools.
On the contrary, people believe that the schools for migrant workers' children are in the "unfavorable conditions for running schools,' "bad safety", "irregularities" and "low degree in education" if judged from the standards of urban people. Nevertheless the floating children and their parents have still chosen the schools for migrant workers' children. As the classmates and teachers in the school are situated as the same as they are. And there is no pressure and prejudice in the school.
