China steps up rural land registrations

BEIJING - China will continue to carry out registrations on the ownership and management rights of rural land to facilitate land transfers, the country's first policy document for 2013 says.

China will improve registration systems for farmer's management rights of contracted land and it aims to complete the work in five years, according to the document released Thursday.

Rural land in China is State-owned or collectively-owned. As the countryside sees more land appropriated or transferred during the country's rapid urbanization, the lack of legal proof on rural land ownership has left farmers' interests poorly protected.

The registration at work, including ownership and land-use rights clarifications, is intended to smooth the way for farmers to transfer or mortgage their lands.

The document said China will guide the orderly transfers of contractual rights of rural lands on the basis of agreed compensations, and to encourage land contracts to flow to large-scale users, family farms or farmer's cooperatives so as to develop scale management.

It said it will explore and set up strict entry and regulation rules for commercial contractors.

Meanwhile, China will accelerate reforms in its rural land expropriation system to better protect the legal rights of those living in rural areas, according to the document.

It said farmers should be entitled to a higher proportion of the value increases of expropriated land, and their long-term interests should be ensured.

The first policy document, issued by the central committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council every year, is dubbed the No 1 central document. This is the 10th consecutive year in which the document focused on rural issues.

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