Several senior officials from home and abroad stressed the importance of improving urban safety at the first China International Symposium on Urban Safety in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province on Dec 12.

"Promoting urban safety is an important part of our efforts to modernize social governance," said Wang Wenxu, vice-governor of Zhejiang province.

Wang said that Zhejiang, one the safest provinces in China, has been implementing measures to improve social safety since 2004 and promised to strengthen cooperation with neighboring provinces and the international community to promote safe and digitalized production, improve emergency response, and prevent and resolve major urban safety risks.

Beate Trankmann, resident representative of the United Nations Development Programme in China, mentioned several problems brought about by rapid urbanization, such as pollution, climate change, natural disasters, poverty and social inequality.

"The UN predicted that two thirds of people in the Asia-Pacific region will be living in cities by 2050, and 255 million people will be added to China's urban population by then," said Trankmann. "We should not consider only economic growth, but also the impacts that urban development has on the environment and society," she continued.

Trankmann expressed her hope to work with China to make cities more resilient. She said that the UNDP has been cooperating with the Chinese government to build resilient cities since 2016, and has been promoting the project in countries and regions involved in the Belt and Road Initiative.

Sun Huashan, Vice-Minister of Emergency Management of China, discussed the increasingly complex ways in which urban areas are operated, due to rapid expansion and the emergence of many new industries.

"There were 672 cities in China in 2018, with a total urban population of around 831 million and an urbanization rate of 59.58 percent. China is also one of the countries suffering the most natural disasters. More than 70 percent of Chinese cities and 50 percent of Chinese people are located in areas with high risk of experiencing a natural disaster, mainly in eastern regions with developed economies," said Sun.

Sun suggested improving urban safety by formulating urban development plans and safety regulations in a scientific way, enhancing infrastructure safety management, and strengthening technological innovation.