China's top legislature on Tuesday began deliberating the draft law on urban and rural planning that aims to ban "vanity projects" or unnecessarily ostentatious real estate projects.

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) started its four-day-long 27th session on Tuesday morning.

Wang Guangtao, Minister of Construction, said that "with development of the economy, new problems have emerged in the country's urban and rural planning."

"Some local governments have blindly pursued urban development and have built too many 'vanity projects'," said Wang.

He said some local governments also failed to let experts and citizens fully participate in the urban or rural planning process.

"Misuse of land resources is serious in rural areas as rural planning is quite inadequate and fails to meet the needs of farmers," Wang said.

"In economically prosperous areas, such as the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta, coordinated urban and rural land and construction planning is very necessary to avoid duplication in construction and wasting of resources," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency April 24, 2007)