The Ministry of Land and Resources admitted yesterday that land abuses are still rampant in the country, despite the elimination of hundreds of development zones and industrial parks since last July.

"Too many officials have actually been looking on without taking action or have been trying to get by under false pretenses," said the ministry in a circular.

It said local governments should adopt more effective measures before March 25 to improve the situation.

Calling it the Chinese "enclosure movement," critics had pointed to the excessive establishment of development zones and industrial parks as a "staggering" waste of arable land.

Last July 18, the State Council suspended the approval of new development zones and industrial parks.

Since then, the central government has closed down 2,426 such projects and integrated another 294.

But this is not as big a success as it sounds.

At the beginning of the campaign, the ministry believed there were a total of 3,837 development zones and industrial parks, only 1,251 of which were approved by the State Council and provincial governments. That meant that the other 2,586 were illegal.

As it turned out, however, the number was 6,015 across the country. In total, they took up an area of 35,400 square kilometers.

Despite the central government's efforts, however, there are still 3,598, not including those supposedly shut down but still operating, said Sun Wensheng, minister of land and resources, during a national conference of the ministry earlier this year.

Noting that improving land use order was a top work priority of the ministry for 2004, Sun said unregulated establishment of development zones and industrial parks must be "resolutely" checked.

In addition to wasting arable land resources, the potential economic benefits development zones and industrial parks can create have motivated some local officials to grab land from farmers without proper compensations, creating a potential threat of social disorder.

Rightful investors should not, however, fear losing their interests due to the campaign.

"If investors can prove their ignorance of the illegitimacy of the development zones or industrial parks, related local governments are obliged to provide a fair compensation scheme to make up for their losses to the campaign," said Mao Donglin, an official with the General Office of the ministry.

However, this can rarely happen. Mao said most of the black-listed development zones and industrial parks are those not capable of attracting sufficient funds for healthy development, leaving idle vast arable lands which might otherwise be growing bump crops in the hands of farmers.

Ma Xuelu, director of the Management Committee of the State High-Tech Development Zone in Baoding, North China's Hebei Province, applauded the new move.

Because without unfair competition from those small and illegal zones and parks, investors would have easier and safer choices.

"I only wish the new efforts can produce more satisfactory results," Ma said.

(China Daily February 21, 2004)