Rural Land System Reform Officially Launched and Implemented

As an important reform with a bearing on the overall situation, China's pilot work on rural land system reform has formally entered the stage of launch and implementation after completing top-level design and legal authorization.

Reporters learned at the deployment and training meeting on the three pilot tasks of rural land system reform, which concluded on the 25th, that according to the Central Committee's "Opinions on the Pilot Work of Rural Land Expropriation, Market Entry of Collective Operational Construction Land, and Reform of the Homestead System," the Ministry of Land and Resources established a pilot work leading group and office headed by the minister, and together with relevant departments established a working mechanism to jointly advance the pilot work.

Jiang Daming, Minister of Land and Resources and National Chief Inspector of Land, said that rural land system reform must hold the bottom line, carry out pilots first, and advance steadily, adhering to the three bottom lines of not changing the nature of public ownership of land, not breaking through the red line of cultivated land, and not harming farmers' interests. Proposals to change the nature of China's public ownership of land must be clearly opposed; acts that use the name of reform to actually occupy cultivated land must be investigated and dealt with according to law and held accountable with severe penalties; situations in which rural rights and interests are harmed during reform must be promptly stopped and resolutely corrected. Pilot areas should proceed from local realities and formulate pilot implementation plans suited to local conditions. The work of confirming, registering, and issuing certificates for rural collective construction land and homesteads should be accelerated, and work such as unified registration of immovable property and designation of permanent basic farmland should be advanced in a coordinated manner.