BEIJING,Jan21,2012: More people lived in China's cities than in the countryside last year for the first time in history, a milestone that also points to
labour supply strains in the world's No 2 economy that could redraw the global manufacturing landscape. Just over 51% of the 1.35 billion mainland Chinese lived in towns and cities at the end of 2011, China's National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday, crossing the halfway mark after three decades of rapid growth. An expert on development in the delta said workers are now increasingly demanding higher wages and better terms as urban property and living costs soar. "China's cheap labour is fading into the past and will never be back," said Cheng Jiansan, a professor with the
Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences, top thinktank in China.
