Today is the World Cities Day. China's Foreign Ministry said that China stands ready to work with all parties to implement the Global Development Initiative, deepen cooperation on cities and jointly build better cities for the future.
It's reported that the 2024 World Cities Day China Observance events are being hosted by Weihai and Shanghai under the theme "Build People-Centered Cities for Better Life", and cities around the world face development challenges of resource shortage, environmental pollution and extreme weather.
Referring to China's achievement and contribution to the world in the sustainable development of cities, China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian introduced at a regular press conference that the World Cities Day is the first World Day that was initiated by China and adopted by the UN General Assembly. It was established to carry forward the vision of "Better City, Better Life" proposed at the 2010 Shanghai Expo, and provides an important platform for exploring joint response to problems cities face and implementing the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, thus receiving growing support from countries around the world.
Lin Jian, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson/MFA PRC
Lin noted that China is experiencing the world's largest-scale and fastest urbanization, and has made historic achievement in the development of cities and urbanization. Over recent years, China has made solid efforts to advance a new type of urbanization centered on the people, deepen reform in the construction, management and governance system of cities, and transform the development ways of cities at a faster pace. China's urbanization rate of permanent residents has hit 66.16 percent, with over 930 million people living in urban areas. The functions, living environment and governance level of Chinese cities have been significantly improved. Chinese cities ranked much higher in the newly released 2024 Global Cities Index, with three cities listed among the world's top ten.
Lin also pointed out that while independently exploring high-quality development of cities, China has actively shared experience of cities' development, and carried out cooperation with multiple countries and regions in smart transportation, energy conservation of buildings and green and low-carbon development, contributing China's wisdom to the sustainable development of cities worldwide. China supports the UN-Habitat in setting up the Global Award for Sustainable Development in Cities (Shanghai Award), and creating the Urban Monitoring Framework – Shanghai Adapted Index and other public goods, to help other countries improve cities' governance efficiency and share outcomes of sustainable development.
"Cities are a characteristic of modern civilization. Lightening up cities requires joint efforts of all countries." Lin added. (By Ma Ziqian/China Youth Daily)
来源：中国青年报客户端
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