National Development and Reform Commission: Resolutely clean up false virtual “featured towns”

On the 20th, the National Development and Reform Commission held a press conference in October. Mr. Wu Yuetao, head of the comprehensive team of the Office of Promotion of Urbanization of the National Development and Reform Commission, said at the meeting that false and virtual “featured towns” must be resolutely cleaned up, and promotional content, Eliminate negative impacts while effectively preventing individual projects outside the list from being named “featured towns”.

Wu Yuetao pointed out that in recent years, the National Development and Reform Commission and relevant parties have continuously deepened the standardization and correction work in response to the problems in the development of characteristic towns, and promoted the introduction of the “State Council General Office forwarding the National Development and Reform Commission’s Opinions on Promoting the Standard and Healthy Development of Characteristic Towns.” At the same time, it also promotes a batch of advanced typical experiences, reports and exposes negative cases, and establishes a research team to conduct on-site inspections. Through the joint efforts of various departments and localities, the development of characteristic towns has generally entered a standardized development track. First, the development of characteristic towns in various regions has gradually shifted from focusing on quantity to focusing on quality. At present, about 1,600 characteristic towns are reserved in the list of characteristic towns in various provinces. Among them, 19 provinces have fewer than 50 characteristic towns in the list. Preliminary formation of “precision” orientation. Second, the development of characteristic towns by various departments is becoming standardized and unified. In accordance with the requirements of No. 33 issued by the State Council, characteristic towns created by various provinces and departments have been transferred to the list of provinces for unified management. Third, the quality of characteristic towns has been effectively improved. About 1600 characteristic towns across the country have absorbed about 4.4 million employees. In recent years, they have completed an investment of about 3.5 trillion yuan and paid about 280 billion yuan in annual taxes. The town has completed an average investment of about 2.1 billion yuan, an average of about 2,700 people are employed, and an average annual tax payment of about 170 million yuan.

Wu Yuetao said that in the next step, the National Development and Reform Commission will continue to work with relevant departments in all regions to thoroughly implement the decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee and the State Council and the requirements of the State Council’s documents, effectively promote the implementation of the “Guidelines”, and correct the norms in recent years. Work to carry out the “look back” action to further standardize the construction order of characteristic towns, and improve the quality and level of the development of characteristic towns across the country. The first is to fully implement “one list management to the end” to guide provinces to establish a comprehensive list management mechanism for characteristic towns. Those included in the list should meet the basic conditions set forth in the “Guidelines” and meet the requirements specified in the “Guidelines” after completion. Indicator requirements, and dynamically adjust the list of characteristic towns based on the situation. The second is to clean up “featured towns” that are not on the list, conduct a comprehensive review of the feature towns that have been built or named before, and clean up or rename those that do not meet the requirements, especially the false virtual “featured towns” that must be resolutely cleaned up. Remove promotional content, eliminate negative impacts, and effectively prevent individual projects outside the list from being named “featured towns”. The third is to ensure that the characteristic towns on the list strictly adhere to the bottom line, urge local governments to strengthen monitoring and supervision, rectify the violations of the “five bottom lines” within a time limit, and promptly clean up the serious ones, find and deal with them together, so as to achieve “zero tolerance.” The fourth is to work together to create a healthy and good public opinion atmosphere, encourage the media to report objectively and impartially, publicize successful experience cases in the construction of characteristic towns, establish positive and advanced models, and prevent confusing concepts and unrealistic hype.