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Shanghai new residency policy draws complaints

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-06-24 22:32

Bustling Chinese cities rely heavily on migrants for construction, domestic help, delivery services and other poorly paid jobs. Many live in villages on the city outskirts, while some occupy shanties beside suburban vegetable fields, working as tenant farmers.

"I'm sorry but I really do not want these people here and I don't want them to get permanent residency," said Qin Zhao, a local-born housewife, as she picked through vegetables in a local market.

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"Those people don't discipline themselves well in public. They spit on the sidewalk and sleep in the subway trains. They are the ones making Shanghai crowded, noisy, unsafe, and dirty. Some of them commit crimes," she said.

Officials introducing the new rules emphasized that the aim is mainly to attract and retain non-Shanghainese professionals working in the financial sector, for foreign companies and in other key industries the city wants to nurture.

Applicants were allowed to begin registering at local "Talent Development Services" centers around the city from Wednesday. But one such center, in the city's Jing'an district, was deserted apart from a few bored clerks who said nobody had applied.

After so many years of getting along without such documents, it's unclear whether many will even bother.

"Frankly, I don't really care about getting permanent residency here. I don't have high vocational qualifications, but I work in management in a foreign company and have a good enough salary to afford an apartment," said Bruce Wong, a chief financial officer in a French consulting company who moved to Shanghai from the central city of Chongqing more than 10 years ago.

"I'm pretty satisfied with my life in Shanghai," he said. "But if I really needed a permanent residency somewhere, I'd probably try for Hong Kong."

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