China renovating 58,000 old urban residential communities

BEIJING - Some 58,000 old urban residential communities in China have been under renovation since 2019 as part of the country's stepped up efforts to improve living conditions in old residential areas, official data showed Wednesday.

A total of 10.43 million households benefited from the renovation program, said Liu Lifeng, an official with the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

The country has rolled out a slew of measures to further improve efforts to renovate old residential communities including accelerating the approval of renovation projects and integrating existing resources, Liu said.

Shantytown transformation has been a priority for the government in recent years. China aimed to renovate 15 million dilapidated homes from 2018 to 2020 to speed up its urbanization drive and improve people's livelihoods.