China has set up a national system for putting the rights to prospect for and exploit mineral resources to auction or public bidding over the past five years, the Ministry of Land and Resources said yesterday.

Ye Dongsong, vice-minister of land and resources, said 161 mineral prospecting rights totalling 146 million yuan (US$17.6 million) were transferred via bids and auctions in the first nine months of this year -- more than for the whole of last year.

The number of mineral exploitation rights that had changed hands in the marketplace this year reached 2,693 at the end of June.

From 1998 to 2001, only 20 mineral prospecting rights and 320 mineral exploitation rights were transferred, earning less than 300 million yuan (US$36.2 million) in total.

At a national symposium, the vice-minister called on vice-mayors in charge of such rights to further develop the market-based transfer system.

"More and more investors have realized that to own more of the rights will give them advantages in the Chinese mining industry of tomorrow," Zeng Shaojin, director of the Department of Mineral Exploitation under the Ministry of Land and Resources, told China Daily yesterday.

Huang Xinlong, vice-mayor of Ganzhou, East China's Jiangxi Province, agreed. A traditional mineral production base, Ganzhou has 1,368 mining enterprises reporting a total yearly output value of over 3.6 billion yuan (US$434.8 million).

"With reduced State funds and restructuring of State-owned mining enterprises, the municipal government is in great need of funds to fuel local mining industries for the sake of State and local economic development, as well as to settle the accounts with many laid-off workers," he said.

This year alone, by transferring about 20 mineral exploitation rights, Ganzhou-based State-owned mining enterprises have managed to revive State-owned properties worth 132.9 million yuan (US$16.1 million). They have earned over 80 million yuan (US$9.7 million) in capital.

(China Daily October 23, 2003)