A spokesman for the ministry said there are still some 20 million unsafe houses in rural areas/XINHUA-File
BEIJING, Feb 10 – The government plans to rebuild three million houses for rural residents in 2013, according to the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.
In 2008, the government carried out pilot projects to rebuild dilapidated houses in rural areas, with similar projects subsequently extended to the whole country.
In July 2011, the Ministry of Finance issued guidelines for the financing of such renovations, with most of the investment set to come from central and local governments at different levels.
Over the past five years, the central government has contributed nearly 70 billion yuan (about $11.3 billion), while local government contributions and social investments stand at a combined total of 330 billion yuan.
A spokesman for the ministry said there are still some 20 million unsafe houses in rural areas.
In the coming years, the State Council and various ministries will reinforce rebuilding efforts to improve the living environment for rural residents, the spokesman said.
About The Author
Xinhua News Agency, founded on November 7, 1931, is China’s national news agency as well as a global news and information network. Xinhua has set up a global news and information gathering network, with headquarters in Beijing, 33 domestic bureaus in provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities plus the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao, as well as 140 bureaus in the rest of the world. Xinhua is yet to set up a bureau in Taiwan, where it has posted resident correspondents. Xinhua provides its worldwide subscribers with news and financial information products in the forms of text, photo, graphics, audio, video, and mobile phone text messages 24 hours a day in eight languages: Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese and Japanese.