Chongqing faces a major problem finding new homes for villagers displaced by the Three Gorges Dam project, with a further 100,000 set to be relocated this year.
The southwest municipality, which lies upstream from the dam, is home to about 85 per cent of the more than one million people authorities must relocate before the controversial project is completed in 2009.
Other Three Gorges migrants come from Hubei province, where the dam is located on the Yangtze River.
Liu Fuyin, who heads Chongqing's migration bureau, was quoted by Xinhua as saying the city had moved into the third phase of relocation work as builders prepare to flood the dam's reservoir this year.
'Although Chongqing city has already completed the second phase of migration and relocation tasks, the third and fourth phases are still rather arduous,' he said.
The city must move 470,000 people and 556 companies before the project is completed.