The local government of southwest China's huge municipality of Chongqing is seeking suggestions from people from "all walks of life" around the world on how to achieve balanced development between its urban and rural areas.

In an open letter posted on the city's portal website -- www.cqnews.net -- Party chief Wang Yang and Mayor Wang Hongju welcomed people "of all walks of life, netizens, scholars, specialists home and abroad, and research and media institutions" to submit proposals via the Internet.

They also said they would study the experiences of other countries in "urbanization and industrialization".

On June 7, Chongqing and Chengdu, capital of neighboring Sichuan Province, were selected by the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's top economic planner, as pilot cities to work towards coordinated and balanced development between urban and rural areas.

Covering an area of 82,000 square kilometers, Chongqing municipality has a population of 31 million, 73 percent of whom live in rural areas.

In March 1997, the city was approved to be a centrally-administered municipality, the fourth one after Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin. The status was expected to prompt the city to spearhead economic development in China's central and western regions.

The city's gross domestic product reached 348.6 billion yuan (US$45.8 billion) in 2006. However, its growth has been grossly uneven. The per capita GDP in Wuxi county was 3,593 yuan last year, only one tenth of that in the developed Yuzhong District.

"The ultimate aim of coordinated rural and urban development is to enable rural farmers and migrant workers to enjoy the same rights, public services and living conditions as urban residents do," Yang Weimin, an official with the NDRC, has said.

People can submit their ideas by email to wangyang@cq.gov.cn and hongju@cq.gov.cn.

(Shanghai Daily June 19, 2007)