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HPEC-NIUA URBAN LECTURE SERIES 

China's Experiences of Urban Opportunities and Challenges

 

Organized by: 

- National Institute of Urban Affairs 

 

Date: 16 February 2009

Venue: Conference Room, NIUA, New Delhi

The High Powered Expert Committee (HPEC) on estimating urban infrastructure investments and National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIIUA) have joined hands to organize a series of events to promote awareness on urban opportunities and challenges in India. NIUA is the secretariat for HPEC. A lecture on, “Cities, Opportunities and Challenges: China’s Experience” was delivered on February 16, 2009 at NIUA by Mr. Keshav Varma, Sector Director, Urban Development, East Asia and Pacific Region, World Bank and was chaired by Dr. Isher Ahluwalia.

Welcoming Mr. Varma, Dr. M. Ramachandran, Secretary (UD) presented a brief background of the speaker. Mr. Varma served as the Commissioner, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) in mid 1990s and inspired AMC’s transformation leading it to become the first urban local body to get credit rated and issue municipal bond. Dr. Ramachandran briefly described on-going JnNURM program in India and indicated that urban India has to learn from urban development and management experiences of China.

Mr. Varma thanked Dr. Ramchandran and Dr. Ahluwalia for the opportunity to discuss China’s experience in urban development with India’s urban professionals.

Giving background to urban China, Mr. Verma mentioned that rapid urbanization in China in last two decades will result to 50 percent of China’s population residing in urban areas by 2010. He outlined three key themes which directed urban development in China, (i) managing urban development with industrial development as principal driver; (ii) piloting innovations based on ‘learning by doing’ approach; and (iii) providing incentives to perform for local government. Salient features of the presentation were:

  1. Level of decentralization in China is high. City resources include value added tax, land tax, user charges, etc. Land is used as a resource for urban development and obtain support for loan from banks for infrastructure projects. Off budget investment in urban infrastructure in the cities is high.

  2. Mayors have executive powers in China, they are often responsible for both urban and rural areas. The Mayors’ role and powers are similar to the Indian District Collector and Municipal Commissioner. Mayors of major Metropolitan Cities have status equal to Cabinet Ministers in the National Government.

  3. Mayors are responsible for achieving economic and infrastructure targets for the cities.

  4. Chinese Government does not believe in incremental infrastructure development. Construction standards are very high and sometimes better than standards followed by US.

  5. Chinese citizens are obsessed with cleanliness of cities.

  6. Chinese cities are becoming accountable and market oriented. Various departments of local governments have been corporative.

  7. In some Chinese cities, tourism development based on cultural heritage is the main contributing factor to economic growth.

Thereon, he highlighted the emerging issues in urban China:

  1. growing role of secondary medium-sized cities; and

  2. environmental sustainability, climate change and natural disaster.

Mr. Varma opined that experiences of China are not completely replicable in India. His suggestions for Indian cities included (i) professionalization of city management; (ii) making cities responsible for economic and infrastructure development; (iii) introducing innovative resource mobilization techniques; and (iv) developing partnerships with citizens and civil society organizations.

Thanking Mr. Varma for his stimulating talk, Dr. Ahluwalia mentioned that his suggestions would contribute to the ongoing debate on urban development in India. There were extensive discussions with the participants that included representatives from research and training institutions, government organizations, international agencies, etc. Prof. Chetan Vaidya, Director NIUA thanked Mr. Varma, Dr. Ramachandran, Dr. Ahluwalia and other participants for their presence and discussions.