Vice-Minister of Land and Resources Li Yuan said at the opening ceremony of a seminar on land resources management that registration of land, which is the key to the land property system, does not cover the whole of China.

This is the biggest loophole in the current land registration system, the official said.

According to statistics, the rate of land registration in China once reached an all-time high of 80 percent. However, the ratio has fallen in recent years due to rapid urban expansion.

Li said that China's land registration system is still not up to the required standards, because of technical, fund and personnel problems. Standardization in the process, result and archive of the land registration should be strengthened.

A land information network will be set up in China to provide service for market transactions and management of land resources, said Li.

During the rapid urbanization in China, the activities of buying and selling land without permission and the illegal building of houses are quite common in the regions linking cities with the countryside. "Management and policy-making should be strengthened to deal with disputes over land and put land management in these regions into order," said Li.

He stressed that China should increase investment and simplify the land registration procedures in the reform of the housing system to improve the efficiency of the reform.

China began to establish the land property system in the 1980s. A nationwide land investigation and registration was conducted at that time. The system has played an important role in urban development planning, governmental management of land property, housing reform in Chinese cities and the development of the land market.

The seminar will last five days in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province. Mayors from 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions across China will hold discussions on the relationship between land registration and urban economic development.

(People's Daily 11/07/2000)