China faces flood of urban poor

Qing Guiyun and her husband Chen Hao spend most of their days in a pedestrian underpass in Beijing's busy Chaoyang business district, she peddling books and he seeking jobs as a part-time home repairman or carpenter.

They are two of some 2.8 million migrant workers, most of whom have left rural areas to seek a fortune in economically booming Beijing. Up to 130 million economic migrants are currently descending on China's cities, mainly along its prosperous eastern seaboard.

Some these migrants have found success beyond their wildest dreams. Others remain in the grip of grinding poverty.

"It has been really hard to make money here. We're lucky if we can make 500 yuan (US$60 dollars) a month between us," said Qing, who hails from rural Guizhou province, one of China's poorest regions.

The two share a small apartment with several other migrant workers and enjoy no social or health benefits from the government.

"We have to pay 200 yuan for rent every month and then we need to eat, so it is hard to send any money home," Qing said. "We rarely buy clothes."

According to a report on China's poverty published last month by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Qing and Chen are a part of a growing army of migrants on the brink of urban poverty, a phenomenon that is likely to get worse before it gets better due to the huge influx of people into cities.

Although China has had resounding some successes in reducing poverty among its 750 million rural residents since it began economic reforms in 1978, in recent years poverty has grown, the report said.

"China's success in reducing poverty reflects sustained rapid economic growth, the mainstreaming of poverty reduction efforts and significant budget allocations for poverty reduction," said David Sobel, one of the authors of the report.

But "there are no official national figures on urban poverty, as urban poverty is handled at the local level ... so our report makes the best estimates of given data."

The report estimates that in 31 major Chinese cities up to 10.3 percent of the registered urban population was impoverished.

When extrapolated to China's 639 cities, this would indicate that up to 48 million registered urban dwellers live below the minimum living standard in China's cities, while some 15 percent of anywhere between 40 million and 130 million migrant workers are also impoverished in the cities.

While of the urban poverty has come from lay-offs at state-run enterprises, which amounted to some 47 million job losses between 1996 and 2000, the report said, millions of economic migrants will boost the numbers in future.

Already government is gearing up for the influx and has begun to set up a social security network.

Urban receiving minimum-living subsidies rose from 4 million in 2001 to 21 million last year, the ADB report said.