Southern Metropolis Daily:

When inspecting Shanghai, General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed that "a people's city is built by the people and for the people." What measures will Shanghai take to bring people a real sense of gain in building this people-centered city? Thank you. 

Gong Zheng: 

General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed that "a people's city is built by the people and for the people" during an inspection tour in Shanghai in 2019. Therefore, Shanghai must take the lead and set an example in building a people-centered city. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), in accordance with the demands and wishes of General Secretary Xi, we will prioritize building Shanghai into a people's city, reserve the best resources for our people, and constantly strive to fulfill the people's yearning for a better life. Our work will focus on the following three aspects. 

First, we will provide benefits for people's livelihoods. We have been concentrating our efforts to improve elderly and childcare services, renovate old residential communities, and increase the income of farmers living on the outskirts of the city. We've launched a series of projects to put people's minds at ease, and carried our practical programs to deliver real benefits to people, in a bid to develop a tightly woven security net and ensure people's livelihoods by improving equality of access and quality of public services. Last year, the CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee and the Shanghai municipal government launched 16 projects regarding people's livelihoods that will last three years. They are all concerned with easing the pains and difficulties troubling people in their lives through the renovation of old residential communities, comprehensive governance of parking, and adding elevators to multi-floor residential buildings. According to these 16 projects over three years, each year we will arrange a batch of practical programs, and this year we have planned 30 programs in 10 aspects. For example, the previous target was to complete the renovation of houses in high-density lanes and alleys under the second level in the central area before the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025). Now the needs are urgent, and we must work to finish in advance. We have innovated methods and established a city renovation center. Under the leadership and with the full participation of the Shanghai Municipal State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and the Shanghai Land Group, we have pooled the best resources into relevant enterprises and platforms. In the past, funds were managed by the districts but are now coordinated by the municipality. Last year, we planned to renovate 550,000 square meters of land, eventually finishing 753,000 square meters in total. There are 1.1 million square meters of land still in need of renovation, including 700,000 square meters this year and 410,000 square meters next. Meanwhile, besides these practical programs, we will arrange a series of items, including community-based care for the elderly, to meet people's urgent needs and solve their most pressing problems.

Second, we will reinforce governance. During the process, we will prioritize safety, enhance grassroots development as the foundation for other works, and make breakthroughs by promoting intelligentization. We will further modernize urban governance through subtle efforts and make intelligentization the main driving force. In Shanghai's case, this means deepening the construction of the two networks - one that integrates all administrative services and one that runs the entire city. Built from scratch, the one-stop administrative service platform has been in use for three years and has become a token of administrative services in Shanghai. As of the end of last year, the platform had 44.16 million users registered under real names and accessed a total of 3,071 services including all administrative approvals. Next, we will continue to expand our services, making efforts in process reengineering and data-driven empowerment. In addition, with support of the one-stop platform, we will proactively build Shanghai into a service-oriented city that offers the best administrative services and business environment. As for the integrated network for city operations, our goal is to put together all relevant information for integrated monitoring and run the entire city via one single network. The network's basic structure is designed to comprehend three layers of platforms and five layers of applications. Operations centers and information platforms are built at the city level, district level and sub-district or town level. These three layers of platforms are also the three layers of applications. Another two layers of applications are built at the grid and community levels. We value practicality and effectiveness and strive to ensure that this network works in reality, gains popularity among grassroots cadres and indeed benefits the public. 

Third, we will improve the environment. We will focus on green, low-carbon development, enhance the comprehensive treatment of air, water, soil and waste, and expedite the implementation of a series of projects to benefit the people with a better environment. We will make the sky bluer, the land greener and the water clearer in Shanghai. The "Yijiang Yihe" project is an example. The public spaces along the 45-kilometer banks of the Huangpu River (In Chinese: Huangpu Jiang) have been linked together and opened to the public. The public spaces along the 42-kilometer banks of the Suzhou River (In Chinese: Suzhou He) in the downtown area had basically been linked up as of the end of last year. These spaces have become two belts of colorful public life where people take leisure, do exercise, enjoy entertainment and benefit from beautiful sights. Next, we will build world-class waterfront areas along the two rivers by refining the use of the lands along the banks. In the process more industrial rust belts will be converted into spaces for better lifestyle and development. Another issue is about parks and green lands. Shanghai is a place that is densely populated yet only covers a small area of land. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, we will continue to take a series of measures to implement the "Thousand Parks Plan". The city now has more than 400 parks, so the task is still heavy, but we will firmly implement the plan to build another 600 odd parks. Currently the per capita green land area is 8.5 square meters and we plan to increase it by more than one square meter. We will make sure that green land can be found a 5 to 10 minutes' walk anywhere in the city, a scenic sight can be seen after every 15 minutes' bicycle ride, and a large-scale park can be discovered after 30 minutes of driving. That's all for now, thank you.