China has used satellite remote sensing techniques to check
illegal land use in 90 cities, said an official with the Ministry
of Land and Resources on Tuesday.
"The techniques will help find out and check illegal land use in
time and give full play to the role of government macro-control in
land supply," said the official with the ministry's Bureau of Law
Enforcement and Supervision, who didn't give his name.
The official said satellite pictures using remote sensing
techniques can show the changing of a city's newly used land for
construction in a period, thereby find out whether the involved
land use breaks laws.
The government check will focus on activities like approving
lands in contrary to government plans and industrial policies and
illegally expropriating farmland for construction, according to the
official.
"We'll resolutely prevent illegal land use from rebounding," the
official said.
The Chinese government has seen checking excessive growth of
land supply as an effective way of curbing runaway fixed-asset
investment and cooling the economy.
Measures have been taken to tighten land supply last year,
including higher taxes on urban land use and stripping local
governments of their authority to spend the money from land
sales.
China's economy grew 10.7 percent year on year in 2006, an
acceleration of 0.3 percentage point against 2005.
Meanwhile, fixed asset investment kept growing rapidly last
year, up 24 percent from 2005.
(Xinhua News Agency February 28, 2007)
