Nine inspection bureaus will be set up nationwide to strengthen
supervision of land acquisition, a document published on the
government website www.gov.cn said yesterday.
Each bureau will be responsible for land use within its
jurisdiction. For example, the Beijing bureau covers the capital
city, Tianjin, the provinces of Hebei and Shanxi and the Inner Mongolia
Autonomous Region.
Inspectors will oversee land protection in the provinces or
municipalities, ensuring that local policies on land use and
management conform with national laws and regulations. They will
also check how the local governments implement central government
policies and propose improvement to tighten controls.
If cases of illegal land use are uncovered, the bureau
inspectors should immediately tell the local governments to take
corrective measures; and report to the central authorities if the
problem is not rectified.
A special department will be set up under the Ministry of Land
and Resources to co-ordinate work, according to the document.
Illegal occupation and use of land is widespread in the country,
often in connivance with local officials.
Statistics from the ministry suggest that one in three
construction projects in recent years are on land acquired
illegally. From October 2004 to May 2005, the figure jumped to one
in two projects.
The latest move comes as about 15 million farmers are expected
to lose their land in the next five years due to increased
urbanization.
In the past decade, about 40 million farmers lost their land as
a result of rapid urbanization, the nation's social security
authority said in a news release.
Even with government efforts to rein in commercial development
of farmland, about 3 million more farmers are likely to lose their
land annually over the next five years, a ministry official
said.
"To resolve the current problems and safeguard the long-term
livelihood of farmers whose land is acquired, we need proper
employment training and social security," the official said,
according to a post on www.gov.cn.
Like other developing countries, the key problem China faces in
its path towards modernization is urbanization.
Only 515 million, or around 40 percent of the 1.3 billion
population, were urbanites as of the end of 2003, compared with an
average 70 percent in developed countries.
China's arable land has reduced from 130 million hectares in
1996 to 122 million hectares last year; and per capita arable land
is 0.093 hectares, only one-third of the global average.
While strengthening efforts to curb the loss of farmland, the
central government has mapped out policies to provide farmers with
reemployment training and other social security guarantees.
(China Daily July 25, 2006)