More than 40 per cent of the population of Chinese cities will be made up of migrants within two decades, putting huge pressure on the ability of local governments to provide services to citizens, according to a study by the McKinsey Global ­Institute.

On top of the existing 103m urban migrants, Chinese cities will face an influx of another 243m migrants by 2025, taking the urban population up to nearly 1bn people. In the medium and large cities, about half the population will be migrants, which is almost three times the current level.