Chengdu Bids Farewell To Temporary Residence Permit

Source: Global Times
By Jin Jianyu

The Chengdu government in China's Sichuan Province announced Thursday that residence permits will replace temporary resident permits for migrant workers in the city from January 1, as part of its new population management strategy.

In many cities in China, a temporary residence permit is the only legal identity document for migrant workers. These documents were introduced in 1984 in Shenzhen, and migrant workers who only hold such a permit cannot enjoy the same residential rights as permanent residents.

According to the Chengdu Residence Permit Management Regulation, which will be implemented January 1, more than 3 million migrant workers in Chengdu will gain more residential rights regarding health care insurance, education, employment, transportation and more.

Migrant workers who live in Chengdu for more than one month can apply to the local government for a residence permit free of charge. They can then apply to become permanent residents once they meet specific requirements, such as ownership of an apartment of at least 70 square meters in Chengdu.

"The residence permit will make us feel more like a local resident in Chengdu," Deng Shaoneng, a migrant who works as an automobile salesman in the city, told the Global Times."

"We won't need to pay more for our kids to go to school anymore," he said. "And we will be able to enjoy more medical insurance and will not have to apply for insurance reimbursement back home."

Deng has worked in Chengdu for six years since he went to university in the city. He said the new policy means that he may make his dream of becoming a permanent Chengdu resident become reality one day.

But the inclusion of all the migrant workers into the city's population of 11.2 million permanent residents will also present a challenge regarding resources.

Liu Jun, deputy director of the Chengdu Bureau of Public Health, said the government would invest more into the healthcare sector, the Chengdu-based West China City Daily reported Friday. And Zuo Rongjun, deputy director of the Chengdu Education Bureau, also said that the children of migrant workers who possess the residence permit, will also be able to enjoy equal education rights as local students.

"Chengdu is setting a good example for other big cities concerning the residence permit system," Lu Jiehua, an expert on population-related issues at Peking University, told the Global Times.

Lu said the new system means that the local government's role will change from that of an administrator to a public service provider, which is the trend of all of the country's local governments.

But Lu also said that whether migrant workers will really benefit from the policy depends on the implementation as, for example, it is the companies who decide on the insurance benefits that they offer their employees.

"Nobody usually knows if the company provides all the insurance as required by the regulation," he added.

And Lu suggested that the authorities should increase supervision and implementation of the regulation.

Since March 2008, this residence permit system has been implemented in more than ten cities in China, including Changchun in Jilin Province and Shenzhen.