Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Issues Major Announcement on Urban Renewal! City Updates!

According to the briefing, in terms of overall requirements, the Opinion clearly defines the guiding principles, working principles, and main goals of urban renewal. By 2030, significant progress is expected in implementing urban renewal initiatives; institutional mechanisms will be continuously improved; urban development and construction models will begin to show tangible results; foundational security will be further strengthened; service efficiency will steadily increase; living environments will significantly improve; economic structures will become richer and more vibrant; cultural heritage will be effectively protected; urban characteristics will become more prominent; and cities will become high-quality living spaces for the people.

In terms of key tasks, the Opinion explicitly outlines eight priority tasks: enhancing reuse of existing buildings, advancing comprehensive renovation of old urban neighborhoods, developing complete communities, promoting renovation of old streets and industrial zones, improving urban functions, strengthening basic infrastructure construction and renovation, restoring urban ecological systems, and protecting historical and cultural heritage.

What are the distinctive features of the eight tasks outlined in the Opinion?

Vice Minister Xie Haisheng stated that urban renewal is a comprehensive and systematic strategic initiative aimed at driving high-quality urban development. The Opinion focuses on promoting structural optimization, functional improvement, cultural vitality, and quality enhancement, aiming to build livable, inclusive, and smart cities. It has set out eight major tasks across four areas—systematicness, practicality for the people, and precision in policy implementation.

First, in task planning, the Opinion proposes advancing the construction of 'four good' projects: good housing, good neighborhoods, good communities, and good cities—highlighting strong systemic integration.

Good housing construction primarily involves building safe, suitable, green, and intelligent residences. It also emphasizes maximizing the reuse of existing buildings and actively transforming old and dilapidated units into modern homes. Steadily promote hazardous housing renovations, enhance the reuse of aging factories, low-efficiency buildings, and traditional commercial facilities, and advance functional transformation and mixed-use redevelopment.

Good neighborhood construction mainly focuses on comprehensive renovation of old urban districts, upgrading outdated pipelines, cleaning up surrounding environments, strengthening quality and safety supervision, improving long-term management mechanisms, and consistently enhancing residents' living conditions, facility standards, service capabilities, and cultural value.

Good community construction emphasizes building healthy, complete, and well-managed communities. It promotes functional transformation of old streets and industrial zones, upgrades industries, boosts vitality, revitalizes old industrial areas, and actively advances urban village renovation.

Good city construction centers on improving urban functions: establishing comprehensive, multi-tiered public service networks; strengthening basic infrastructure construction and renovation; restoring urban ecological systems; protecting historical and cultural heritage; advancing restoration of historic districts and immovable cultural relics; repairing historic buildings; exploring rational ways to utilize cultural heritage; integrating history and culture with modern life to create harmonious, attractive urban spaces.

Second, in implementation measures, the Opinion emphasizes serving the people, benefiting the people, and ensuring safety. It proposes numerous practical actions such as steadily advancing hazardous housing renovation, comprehensively renovating old neighborhoods, building complete communities, promoting urban village renovation, increasing community parks and pocket parks, and promoting open sharing of public green spaces. These measures aim to address urgent public concerns, creating safer, more comfortable living conditions, more convenient and efficient public services, and more beautiful, livable urban environments.

Third, in organizational execution, the Opinion stresses adhering to local suitability and precise policies. It calls for fully considering regional and urban differences, scientifically and reasonably determining key renewal tasks, refining implementation paths, improving work methods, following the principles of doing one's best and acting within capacity, advancing implementation in an orderly manner, handling each matter thoroughly, ensuring every action counts, avoiding superficial or symbolic efforts, and guaranteeing real results and genuine success.

Zhang Jian, Chief Planner of the Ministry of Natural Resources, stated that the ministry is fulfilling its responsibilities through the 'One Map' system for natural resource management and national land spatial planning. This includes strengthening inventory checks of existing resources, clarifying their quantity, ownership, and usage status, and enforcing the requirement that 'old cities must not be demolished.' Targeted surveys of spatial elements related to natural and historical-cultural aspects within cities will be conducted to establish a unified base map and data foundation.

First, strengthen the leading role of national land spatial planning by reinforcing guidance and bottom-line constraints for specialized plans. Collaboratively promote urban renewal initiatives. With the nationwide completion of municipal and county-level land space master plans, we will integrate all relevant departments’ efforts to establish a '1+N' planning framework, forming a joint force. We will actively support local governments in formulating detailed urban renewal plans, guiding the alignment of these plans with national strategies and spatial layouts, and ensuring seamless integration with detailed regulations.

Second, deepen and refine detailed planning reforms to meet the needs of urban renewal in the current era. Enhance the precision and protection capacity of core elements, uphold the principles of 'strictly controlling expansion, maximizing reuse, optimizing structure, and improving efficiency,' rigorously raise the intensity of land consolidation, and during plan formulation, prioritize thorough research and clear decisions on what to build, who will use it, and how it will be acquired—especially strengthening research into mechanisms for optimizing reuse of existing assets.

What measures will the Ministry of Finance take to support urban renewal?

Ji Fang, Director of the Economic Construction Department of the Ministry of Finance, stated that urban renewal requires substantial investment in financial and resource inputs. The central government will support this work through the 'Three Focuses' strategy.

First focus: pioneering new models. In 2024, to guide pilot cities in exploring sustainable urban renewal models, the Ministry of Finance launched the urban renewal initiative, initially identifying 15 pilot cities. At the policy design level, the Ministry maintains the 'Three Emphases'.

First emphasis: addressing deficiencies. Prioritize strengthening underground pipeline upgrades for drainage, gas, and heating systems, promoting integrated construction of infrastructure, and advancing 'factory-to-network' wastewater treatment systems.

Second emphasis: stimulating consumption. Guide local governments to enhance cultural, tourism, dining, and leisure recreation integrations in old districts during renewal, while strengthening consumption-oriented infrastructure development.

Third emphasis: improving mechanisms. Encourage local governments to explore innovations in multi-source capital, project reserves, and land approval mechanisms for urban renewal. Over the past year, the infrastructure quality of the 15 pilot cities has noticeably improved. This year, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development will jointly select another batch of 20 cities with the Ministry of Finance.

Second focus: prioritizing key tasks in urban renewal. Strengthen financial policy and funding support. Since the '14th Five-Year Plan', central fiscal subsidies have totaled approximately 15.94 billion yuan to support old neighborhood renovations. In 2023 alone, 1.53 billion yuan was allocated to support urban village renewal. During the '14th Five-Year Plan' period, about 6 billion yuan has been arranged to support the full-scale promotion of coastal city construction, mobilizing total investments of 16 billion yuan. In 2024, the central budget forecasts over 42.5 billion yuan in funds—including internal investment, long-term special bonds, and increased sovereign bonds—to support projects like gas pipeline upgrades and flood prevention improvements.

Third focus: coordinating financial and credit policies. Expand the scope of government special bonds targeting specific sectors and project financing, and increase support for urban renewal-related projects. Leverage the catalytic effect of policy finance and encourage policy banks to provide risk-controlled, sustainable funding under favorable conditions, offering support to qualified urban renewal projects.

How does the National Development and Reform Commission intensify support for urban renewal projects?

Wei Chengzhi, head of the Asset Investment Company of the National Development and Reform Commission, stated that the commission is actively supporting urban renewal construction. This is primarily achieved through four channels.

First channel: central budgetary investment. Since the '14th Five-Year Plan,' over 47 billion yuan has been allocated to support underground pipeline renovations, old neighborhood upgrades, and urban village renewal projects.

Second channel: increased sovereign bonds. In 2023, 14 billion yuan in additional sovereign bond funds were allocated to support urban flood control and drainage infrastructure.

Third channel: long-term special bonds. Starting in 2024, underground infrastructure projects will be included in the 'dual support' framework. Over 29 billion yuan in long-term special bond funds have already been arranged.

Fourth channel: local government special bonds. Actively support qualified municipal infrastructure upgrades, old neighborhood renovations, urban village renovations, and old street (industrial zone) transformations.

Going forward, the National Development and Reform Commission will follow instructions from the Party Central Committee and implement tasks based on division of labor. It will continue to promote various urban renewal projects, consolidate and leverage related investment channels, further increase support for urban renewal initiatives. At the same time, it will innovate financing models, improve operational maintenance systems, refine cost-recovery mechanisms, and actively advance urban renewal 'soft construction.' Key efforts will include steady, orderly implementation of priority renewal projects, sustained expansion of central investment support, and active advancement of three areas of innovation in financing models.

Additionally, Li Yan, Director of the Statistics and Risk Monitoring Bureau of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, stated that the CBIRC will strongly support urban village renewal by driving greater credit investment, generating more physical work volume. The regulatory body will actively participate in infrastructure and major project construction, meeting reasonable funding needs in areas such as water, electricity, gas, transportation storage, information technology, urban networks, and integrated underground utilities, thus promoting higher-quality infrastructure development.