Beijing to restrict population to 23 million to curb traffic owes

BEIJING: China's national capital Beijing has announced plans to build a new administrative center adjacent to the city to address growing traffic woes while promising to limit its population to 23 million people.

The city would speed up construction of a "subsidiary administrative center" while promising to limit its population to 23 million people, an official announcement said here today at a key meeting of the ruling Communist Party of China.

During the meeting, a guideline was passed on promoting the integration of Beijing with its neighbouring Hebei Province and Tianjin Municipality.

The city's "subsidiary administrative center" would be "focused" on Tongzhou, a suburban district to the southeast, and its construction must have "remarkable progress" by 2017, according to the guideline.

The guideline also said the city must stick to its population control target of 23 million people. The city's total population stood at 21.5 million in 2014, according to official data, state-run news agency Xinhua reported.

The Chinese capital has sought to address its severe "urban diseases," such as traffic congestion and air pollution, by curbing its population growth and moving some facilities to nearby regions.

The announcement said moving out some of Beijing's non-capital functions would be a top priority in the strategy of integrating Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei that China has been promoting.

Over the past year, a number of wholesale markets in the city's central areas were shut down or relocated.

The capital has also accelerated the pace of industrial restructuring and followed a more stringent policy to floating population registration.