China's push to loosen Mao-era residence rules runs into hurdles | Reuters

autotldr Bot , 8 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

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BEIJING/HONG KONG, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Yang Guang’s rise from a village farmer to an Audi-driving businessman with two properties hinged largely on one of the most coveted documents in China: an urban hukou, or residency permit.

The accounts described previously unreported tensions over hukou reform, with Chinese officials acknowledging a strong economic rationale for change but hesitant to take decisive moves that might disrupt social stability and burden indebted cities with added costs.

Medium-sized and smaller cities have excess housing stock they would gladly offer to new residents, but due to surging debt they lack the funds to expand access to health facilities, elderly care and education.

In China, rural hukou come with land rights - and, implicitly, the insurance policy of living off the farm if city jobs are unavailable - making many migrant workers from the countryside reluctant to apply for urban permits, especially in a slowing economy.

In their modern iteration, hukou limit access to public services for many of the almost 300 million rural migrants who leave their families behind to assemble the smartphones, raise the skyscrapers, lay the roads and clean the malls in Chinese cities.

Cai Fang, a central bank adviser, estimates migrant workers typically spend 23% less than those with urban hukou, potentially depriving the economy of more than 2 trillion yuan ($281 billion) - or 1.7% of last year’s GDP - in domestic consumption annually.

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