The country is going to adopt the "toughest land management
system" as an important part of its macroeconomic adjustment, a top
land official said on Friday.
Addressing a work meeting, Sun Wensheng, minister of land and
resources, called on his local subordinates nationwide to carry out
their supervision and management work to protect the diminishing
supply of farmland.
Sun said land management work was given a "new and higher
requirement" during the Central Economic Work Conference held
earlier this month.
"Paying attention to energy saving and reducing energy
consumption, environmental protection and conservation of land is
listed as one of the 10 problems the central government had
stressed," he said.
Measures have been taken this year to tighten land-use
management to curb excessive fixed-assets investment and rampant
illegal land acquisitions.
"Some cities have already used up their planned land-use quota
until 2010," said Li Yuan, vice-minister of land and resources
.
Li said next year's quota of agricultural land for new
construction must not exceed this year's level, which is projected
to be 266,000 hectares. He said less land would go for industrial
use and more for projects closely related to people's lives and
ensure necessary fixed-assets construction.
A tough punishment system would be imposed to ensure that local
officials strictly follow the plan, Li said.
Li said the ministry would strengthen the use of remote sensing
and spot checks to monitor key cities for any violation in land
expropriation.
The country also plans to allocate more than 100 billion yuan
(US$12.5 billion) from its land-use proceeds to boost agricultural
development in the next year.
The country collected 10.08 billion yuan (US$1.26 billion) from
land-use fees for new construction projects from January to
November this year, a year-on-year increase of 83 per cent.
And a regulation that came out last month will double the
land-use fee for new construction starting from next year.
The money from the fee, which originally belonged to the local
governments, will now be split, 30 per cent to the central
government and 70 per cent to the provincial treasury. That move
was an attempt to cool off local officials' fever to sell land by
reducing the profits they could earn.
(Xinhua News Agency December 23, 2006)