Temporary residence permits to become residence permits

Beijing Youth Daily
December 3, 2009

Today the Beijing Youth Daily‘s top headline is ‘Beijing temporary residence permits to become residence permits’.

This is not connected to the national hukou or household registration system that can prevent migrants from enjoying benefits such as schooling for their children. The temporary residence permits essentially involve who move to Beijing from elsewhere registering with the police in their neighborhood, in the same way that foreigners are obliged to get a document from police station after arrival or renewing visas.

With the removal of ‘temporary’ from ‘residence permit’, the new name sounds more welcoming, but judging from the Youth Daily article, it’s not clear if there will be any benefits to holders of the new documents:

According to Beijing’s ‘City Comprehensive Management Office’ (宗治办) vice director Miao Lin, “Changing documents is rather easy, but as to what additional services will come with the change, that we are still researching”. In other words, it may just be changing documents.

In unrelated news, the front page photo shows a man filling a truck’s diesel tank from an black market mobile diesel filling station. According to the accompanying article, the mobile filling station was charging 6.5 yuan for a liter of #10 diesel, almost 0.5 yuan cheaper than the official price.

The police have arrested the truck driver and are investigating. They suspect that that the fuel sold at cheap prices was adulterated with cheaper fuel or other additives.