Each workday, Li Yingmu rides his motorcycle on the 10-minute commute to his job at a factory in Chongqing's Liangjiang New Area. It's a short trip for Li, but a far cry from the challenging life he led not so long ago as a corn and wheat farmer in the nearby fields.

Those fields are gone now - absorbed by one of Liangjiang New Area's many new development projects - and Li is one of thousands of rural residents who have relocated as Chongqing expands to become a major trade crossroads of inner China.

"It's a big task" to balance urban and rural development on such a large scale, acknowledged Ling Yueming, director general of the Administrative Committee of Liangjiang New Area.