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Pre-Olympics Beijing Already Bulging at the Seams |
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| CHINA: August 22, 2007 | ||
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BEIJING - The capital of the world's most populous country is only 1 million short of 18 million, the ceiling the city government had set for 2020, state media said on Tuesday.
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Already a magnet for migrant workers building the city's massive construction sites, Beijing is expected to host an extra 2 million people when it hosts the 2008 Olympic Games. The figure breaks down into 12 million holders of Beijing "hu kou", or household registration certificates, and 5 million migrant workers, sources close to the Ministry of Public Security said at a workshop on the country's management of migrants. Beijing's municipal government announced last year it would limit its population to 18 million by 2020. China's drought-prone capital must curb its rapid population growth or risk running out of water and other natural resources as experts have warned that Beijing has already 3 million more than its resources can feed. "Given this year's baby boom, triggered by the superstitious belief that babies born in the Chinese year of the pig are lucky, analysts say there is little hope for an immediate slowdown in Beijing's population growth, even with the post-Beijing Olympics lull and soaring housing prices," Xinhua news agency said.
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REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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