By Liu Shouying, China Economic Times, Li Qing, Research Department of Rural Economy of DRC, & Wang Ruimin Renmin University of China

Research Report No 169, 2015 (Total 4854)

Abstract:

The structure of China's rural land property right ownership since reform has taken on several new features in recent years that merit our attention. One, Collective land ownership is changed and turned over to the village. The merger of villages is sharpening, which results in changed boundaries of land ownership. The major collective land ownership is turned over to the village, and the proportion of village-owned land has rapidly increased. In the eastern region, the proportion of village-owned land is the highest, because small village groups (the former production teams), as the main body of collective land ownership, are losing land ownership. Two, Membership-based collective ownership is self-enforcing, and a considerable number of rural households are against the policy of "unchanged land acreage irrespective of changes in household size". Three, Due to rapidly changing ownership structure and related policies, the number of farmers losing contract and management rights of rural land is increasing. The main reasons include land acquisition, the policy of "unchanged land acreage irrespective of changes in household size", extra kids under the one-child policy, and the separation of land contract right and management right related to floating population. And four, the confirmation and implementation of land right have improved the level of guarantee over contract and management rights of land, but during implementation, problems exist with respect to discrepancy between land acreage and land certificate, difficulty in completion of the scheduled plan, difficulty in getting mortgage loan, and mismatch between related policies and systems.