A new opportunity for prosperity

Urbanization is definitely the buzzword of the year. Premier Li Keqiang has stressed on several occasions that urbanization will create China's biggest domestic demand. At the year-end Urbanization Work Conference chaired by President Xi Jinping in mid-December last year, a quality-based, human-centered and green urbanization target was also highlighted.

From a policy perspective, this newspaper has reported extensively throughout the whole year on the topic. Institutional barriers for better urbanization such as the hukou (household registration) system, rural land regime and local government fiscal power restraints have been analyzed carefully. Today, however, we would like to focus more on the grass-roots level, of how the grand strategy affects people's everyday lives and how enormous business potential will be created. Our onsite studies showed that the impact is real and all-encompassing.

It is also worth noting that the demand from urbanization should not be the only dimension when we talk about urbanization.