Dalian was awarded the first prize for making great achievements on land resources planning from the Ministry of Land and Resources at a meeting of the national land and resources programming held on Monday in Dalian, Northeast China's Liaoning Province.
The ministry officials gave high praise for the city's work on programming and protecting its land resources and advancing city construction standards.
According to Wang Zhenggang, director of the Dalian Municipal Bureau of Land Resources Programming, more than 100 enterprises that have the potential of polluting the environment and disturb people's lives have been moved out of the urban area in recent years.
The city has also reformed and reconstructed 34 slum areas and 22 low-lying lands, making about 1 million square meters of land for the best use of its land resources.
In addition, Bo Xilai, governor of Liaoning Province, said that in the next 10 years, Liaoning Province aimed at further developing the economy and protecting its land resources at the same time. 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 the land supply.
Bo also put forward four assignments for land resources protection in Liaoning in the next decade that include realigning the heavy-polluted Liaohe River, protecting the western area of the province from changing to sandy wasteland, protecting the natural woods in the east of Liaoning, and controlling and improving the "red tide" in the Bohai Sea.
Furthermore, as it is dedicated to enhancing public awareness of the need to protect the country's limited land resources, Liaoning is going to establish a Liaoning Geological Museum and a Liaoning Geological Park.
(China Daily July 17, 2002)
