"The economic development (of the country) should be a sustainable one based on well-guarded and reasonably utilized resources," Tian said at a national work conference of the ministry.

According to the minister, a top priority of the ministry in the near future will be to ensure the implementation of the utilization programs of land and mineral resources authorized by the central government.

It took the ministry five years to establish a complete set of the programs at both national and local levels, which stipulate various disposals of specific land pieces and mineral resources.

"The ministry will use remote sensing techniques to monitor related changes," said Tian.

"Moreover, the ministry will start such pilot programs as appointing special personnel to examine the utilization of land and mineral resources across the country."

As for those dugout violations of the programs as well as related regulations, Tian warned, the ministry will see to it that those responsible be punished, rather than only issuing fines to organizations involved.

Statistics from the ministry indicate the ministry has cracked nearly 600,000 law-breaking cases regarding land and mineral resource utilization in the past 5 years.

Most of those involved in land abuse cases are officials with local governments, who transferred utilization rights of land pieces illegally either to attract outside investment or to fill their own pockets.

Such illegal behavior on the part of local officials is still a major stumbling block in the healthy development of the country's land markets, Tian said.

The establishment of land markets, where utilization rights of State-owned land pieces are put up for public competition, is taken as one important change in the country's land supply system in the interest of fair play.

Because it aims to deprive local governments of the right to "allocate" land pieces at will.

Tian also reaffirmed the determination of the ministry to ensure proper compensations for farmers who have their land requisitioned.

Although it is inevitable for many farmers to loss their homes to land requisition programs to meet the growing demands of the country's economic development, the government can at least make the process less painful, said Tian.

The ministry has required all land requisition programs of governments at municipal and county levels to be made public in order to draw comments from farmers involved.

(China Daily March 10, 2003)