Officials from the city?discussing the work of district and county officials at the meeting, on Sept 7. [Photo/provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Zhanjiang, in Guangdong province, is striving to make the best use of its urban spaces as a top priority to embrace the urbanization drive.

The city held a meeting on urban expansion and improvements in its "big city" landscape on Sept 7, during which Mayor Wang Zhongbing said urbanization has become a pressing issue for Zhanjiang, in light of China's push for a new-type urbanization.

Zhanjiang is a populous city with around 1.3 million people in the 108-sq-km central area, in total the city covers an area of 13,000 sq km. As Wang explained, the city's future expansion will focus on the Haidong new district to the east and Xicheng new district to the west, and upgrade its old central areas.

He also pointed out that the city needs to make use of and renovate its underground pipeline construction, and adopt a Public Private Partnership (PPP) to attract capital for infrastructure.

Haidong new district is a pioneer in Zhanjiang's coastal development. [Photo/provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Haidong new district is a pioneer in Zhanjiang's coastal development. [Photo/provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

And, with the provincial games being held in the city in 2015, it needs to speed up new district development at higher standards, with emphasis on transit-oriented development, which could help form a "big city" framework with future metropolitan economic areas linking different districts and counties.

At the same time, social and economic development needs to keep pace with ecological and environmental protection, which also means the equal allocation of public services and land and sea resources.

Local county officials also took part in the meeting to discuss the topic.

Edited by Roger Bradshaw