Urbanization drives growth

THE GOVERNMENT IS BETTING HEAVILY ON A new round of urbanization to provide the "kinetic energy" that bridges the urban-rural divide, promotes agricultural modernization, raises production capacities and farmers' incomes, stimulates consumption, attracts investment, incubates new industries, unleashes greater domestic demand, defuses the economy's downward pressures, and guarantees its steady and persistent progress.

Judging from what Premier Li Keqiang expects of this "powerful engine", the new type of urbanization holds essential weight in his mega-strategy for new breakthroughs, economically and socially.

Urbanization is a good bet for present-day China, not only because of its multiple potential benefits that are economic commonsense to all, but, more essentially, because of the grim socioeconomic reality of the urban-rural disparity.