China land reform is move toward privatization

BEIJING - China's Communist Party yesterday issued new rules that would allow farmers to lease their contracted farmland or transfer their land-use rights, an important part of a land reform effort intended to double rural incomes by 2020, the official New China News Agency said.

The decision published yesterday was approved a week ago at a four-day session on rural reform aimed at tackling the growing urban-rural wealth gap that increasingly threatens the party's legitimacy.

There are thousands of protests in the countryside every year, often over illegal land grabs or a lack of compensation. Even in some cities in central and western China, nearly 80 percent of new land projects are illegal, a survey by the Land and Resources Ministry showed last year.

Although China's 800 million farmers own their own produce, farmland in China is still collectively owned and parceled out in 30-year leasing contracts. Allowing the transfer of land-use rights is a major step toward privatization.

"The new measures adopted are seen by economists as a major breakthrough in land reforms initiated by late leader Deng Xiaoping 30 years ago, which will avail farmers of opportunities to conduct scale management and new business operations," the New China News Agency said.

Markets for land leasing and rights transfer will be set up to allow farmers to sub-contract, exchange and swap their rights, the agency said. All transfers of land-use rights must be voluntary, with adequate payment.

"Before, the land belonged to the country, so local officials could always take it away very easily," said Dang Guoying, a researcher at the Rural Development Institute of China's Academy of Social Sciences.

Land transfers have occurred in the past, but were not common, Dang said. "There was no article in the law about transfers, so the rights of the contract holders were not well protected," Dang said.