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Building a regulated land market is the only way to make the best use of the country's land resources, Minister of Land and Resources Tian Fengshan said Monday.
"After 14 years of effort, China has made remarkable progress towards this goal by establishing a new paid system to transfer the right to the use of State-owned land," said Tian on the day before this year's National Day of Land.
By the end of 2001, over 90 per cent of the country's provinces and autonomous regions had established a system of public bidding for the use rights to available land pieces.
And a total of 49.2 billion yuan (US$5.9 billion) has been collected from public bidding for land-use rights.
Dedicated to enhancing public awareness of the need to protect the country's limited land resources, the National Day of Land was designated in 1991, and has been given different themes each year to tackle heated problems in the field.
This year's theme is "regulating the land market for economic development."
Land parcels are the most important State-owned assets valued at 25 trillion yuan (US$3.019 trillion), more than triple the total value of other State-owned properties.
The Chinese Constitution stipulates that urban land belongs to the State, whereas the collectives are entitled to rural land and suburban land around cities.
And according to the Constitution, user can be granted the right to use the land for development, but private ownership of land resources is prohibited.
Besides using the land-market mechanism to increase the value of State-owned land property, local governments can modify local economic development through the adjustment of land supply.
The government has privilege over other parties to buy land for reserve.
The prices the government pays, as well as the prices at which it sells the land pieces later, are based on standard land prices the ministry sets according to the specific geological, social and economic conditions of the land pieces.
Li Yuan, vice-minister of land and resources in charge of the land market, said this land reserve practice, an important trait of the Chinese land market, also helps increase the value of State-owned land properties.
(China Daily June 25, 2002)
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