Beijing denies plans to expel workers during Games

BEIJING, Sep 15 (Reuters) Beijing has denied reports that it is planning to send up to a million migrant workers home during the 2008 Olympics to ease crowding in the capital, state media said today.

Managing population growth in the capital, officially home to over 15 million but with an estimated 3 million unregistered residents, has become a headache for city authorities. During the Games, Beijing is expected to host an extra 2.5 million domestic and international visitors.

Beijing 2008 Environmental Construction Headquarters officials had proposed ordering construction firms to advise their temporary workers, numbering as many as one million in Beijing, to return to their hometowns while the Games are under way, according to media reports.

''Beijing's floating population are mainly farm workers engaged in urban infrastructure projects. Just counting those in construction, there will be an estimated one million during the Olympic period,'' the Beijing News reported today, citing materials released by the construction body.

''The government could request the building commission to coordinate with construction firms to establish a regulatory system to advise these workers to return home,'' it added.

According to the Beijing News, officials had proposed limiting the numbers of people entering Beijing during the Olympics by requiring them to ''produce accreditation'' issued from at least a ''county-level authority'', although it did not elaborate.

But Zhou Jidong, an official with the headquarters, told the official Xinhua news agency the reports were ''groundless''.

''There are no plans for making any laws or decisions to force migrant workers out of Beijing during the Olympic Games,'' Zhou said.

According to Zhou, the newspapers had reported ''just some suggestions put forward by the experts attending the conference and they are by no means what the Beijing municipal government is trying to implement.'' The official added they would release a written announcement later today for further clarification.

The Beijing News also said that Beijing would ''control'' its population of migrant workers involved in ''bottom-end'' industries such as ''small beauty parlour workers'' or selling ''discarded goods'', the paper said.

This would require the ''co-operation and support'' of other provinces, the paper said.

Loose enforcement of residence permits and an insatiable demand for cheap labour to fuel Beijing's pre-Olympic construction boom mean thousands of rural workers migrate to the city every year, straining infrastructure and stoking fears of the development of an urban underclass.

Environmental officials also have warned that drought-prone Beijing must cap its yearly population growth to 200,000 people to guarantee adequate water supplies, according to local media reports.

REUTERS DH VV1523