[photopress:arableland.jpg,full,alignright]A new nationwide land regulatory system will be put in place in China to try and keep arable land safe and, at the same time, rein back some of the overheated investment in fixed assets. All this from the Ministry of Land and resources.
Nine regional offices will begin work on this in the near future. They will be in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenyang, Nanjing, Jinan, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Chengdu and Xi’an. The Shanghai and Beijing offices are already set up and the others are being organized.
Each office will be responsible for land use within its jurisdiction which may be wider than would appear. For example the Beijing office covers the capital city, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
Inspectors will oversee land protection in the provinces and municipalities to ensure local policies and measures conform to national laws and regulations.
If a case of illegal land use is uncovered the inspectors will inform the local government concerned and make sure the the central authorities know about it if the problem is not rectified.
Li Yuan, deputy minister of the MLR, said the amount of farmland designated for new construction projects in 2007 will remain the same as this year. In fact the amount of land for construction projects during the first 11 months of this year is only half compared with the same period last year.
Last month the MLR ordered the doubling of the land-use fee for new construction projects next year. Last week it also ordered a ban on the construction of large commercial and entertainment facilities, small industrial projects and residential buildings with low density on arable land next year.
Li Yuan, said, ‘The country will continue to implement the strictest land policy in the world.’ His view is that 1.8 billion mu (120 million hectares) of arable land is the base minimum to ensure food security for the country.
China’s arable land has been reduced from 1.95 billion mu (130 million hectares) in 1996 to 1.83 billion mu (122 million hectares) this year which puts it very close to that bottom figure.
Source: China Daily