Laws of the People's Republic of China

    Since the issuance of the Circular of the Central Committee of Communist Party of China and the State Council on Further Strengthening Land Management and Earnestly Protecting Farmland, the land management, especially the work in relation to the protection of farmland, has been strengthened, certain success has been achieved. However, there still exist some problems such as disorder in land use, illegal transfer of land use right, and especially the illegal transaction of land collectively owned by farmers is relatively serious, resulting in speculative land dealing and illegal fund raising in the name of developing "orchard" or "manor". In order to further strengthen the management of land transfer, to prevent the fashion of speculative land dealing, to keep the stability in rural areas, to protect the interests of farmers, and to ensure the healthy and sustainable development of economy and society, upon the examination and approval of the Premiers' working conference of the State Council, the issues concerning strengthening management of land transfer and strictly banning speculative land dealing are announced as follows:

    1.Strictly control the total amount of land used for urban and rural construction, decisively curb illegal occupying of land for non-agricultural construction

    The construction of cities, villages and towns should not exceed the land use scale set in the overall plan for land use, in cities the newly increased land for construction and the original land for construction should be uniformly controlled in a way of aggregate supply and demand,   and the land cannot be supplied exceeding the plan; where the idle land may be used in a variety of construction, such idle land must be used, the occupying of land for agriculture should not be approved, for localities where idle land are not fully used, their index for transfer use of agricultural land should be deducted for the next year.

    The residential sites in rural areas should be strictly controlled in scale and scope, land for building new houses should be approved in strict accordance with the plan, the newly built houses should be gradually centralized towards core villages and small towns town. The construction of core villages and small towns should be rationally laid out and planned in a unified way, the agricultural land should not be arbitrarily occupied or requisitioned. The form of land supply and the relationship of property right of land should be clearly identified in the construction of small towns, so as to prevent the occurrence of disputes arising from land property ownership.

    The land used by township enterprises must be strictly controlled in the scope of land for construction of cities, villages and towns set in the overall plan for land use, the buildings and structures not conforming to the overall plan for land use should not be re-built or enlarged and should be adjusted and centralized step by step along with the reform of township enterprises and the cleaning up of land.

    The scope of land for service areas along express ways should be strictly controlled, farmland along the both sides of highways, if comforting to requirements, must be included into protection areas for capital farmland.

    2.Strengthen the management of transfer of land collectively owned by farmers, strictly ban illegal occupancy of land collectively owned by farmers for developing real estate.

    The use right of land collectively owned by farmers cannot be transferred, conveyed, or rented for non-agricultural construction; as for the township enterprises that conform to the plan and have legally obtained the use right of construction land, if their land use rights have to be conveyed owing to bankruptcy or merger, they should undergo examination and approval procedures in strict accordance with law.

    Farmers' residences cannot be sold to urban residents, and urban residents should not be approved to occupy land collectively owned by farmers to build residences, the relevant departments should not issue land use license and real estate certificate for illegally-built or bought residence.

    The circumstances that unapproved and arbitrary transference of land collectively owned by farmers into construction land should be cleaned up earnestly. Those that do not conform to the overall plan for land use should be resumed back to agricultural purposes within a specified time limit, and returned to the original contractor of land collectively owned by farmers; for those that conform to the overall plan, procedures for using land must be undertaken according to law.

    3.Strengthen land management of agricultural and forestry development projects, ban the requisition of land collectively owned by farmers to carry out agricultural and forestry development such as "orchard" or "manor"

    The agricultural and forestry development projects must conform to the overall plan for land use and the annual plan for land use, the ownership of land right and types of land must be strictly examined, no unit or individual may carry out land development activities within reclamation-forbidden areas defined by the overall plan for land use.

    The procedures for using land must be go through in strict accordance with the relevant provisions of the Land Administration Law of the People's Republic of China, in carrying out agricultural and forestry development projects, no unit or individual may privately sign an agreement of land use rural collective economic organization, it is prohibited to obtain the land collectively owned by farmers in the way of requisition to carry out agricultural and forestry development such as "orchard" or "manor"

    Where the agricultural and forestry development is carried out by using State-owned land in a form of contractual management, a contractual agreement for State-owned land must be signed, in which the rights and obligations of both parties must be agreed upon.

    The agricultural and forestry development projects must use the land in strict accordance with the approved planned purposes, it is strictly prohibited to change the purpose for agriculture and forestry to carry out real estate development such as villas, holiday-spending houses or entertainment facilities, where not-agricultural construction is really necessary, the examination and approval procedures for construction use land must be gone through according to law. For those belonging to basic construction projects, the examination and approval procedures must be through in strict accordance with the procedures for capital construction. Only after the construction projects have been approved, may the procedures for using land for construction be gone through, it is strictly prohibited to use land before approval.

    4.Strengthen supervision of land used for development, forbid developing land for illegal financing.

    The land for developing projects for agriculture and forest must be registered. The conditions for conveyance or renting must be obviously stipulated. Conveyance or renting with no approval is forbidden. If the acquisition of the land use right is through auction or conveyance and the land is collectively owned and not in use, only after payment is fulfilled and pre-development is finished, can conveyance, renting, mortgage, contracting and other forms be used to obtain the land use right. With no permission of renter or original owner, no sub-contract, rent, conveyance, mortgage may be carried out.

    The People's Bank of China should strengthen management of credit and loan for developing projects for agriculture and forest, contribute more efforts to the supervision and investigation and punishment to the illegal fund raising acts in the name of land development or land transfer. As to land for development the payment of which is not completed and the use right of which is not acquired, the banks concerned should permit the mortgage of it.

    Administrative departments for industry and commerce must strengthen management of enterprises engaged in developing land, strictly examine their operation scope. These enterprises cannot use "attracting trade" and other informal diction, should not engage in illegal financial activities; for attracting shareholders to develop land, no matter in the form of selling or conveyance or any other form, the enterprises should proceed the procedure of enterprise registration according to the Company Law of the People's Republic of China. Operation of those enterprises must be strictly supervised. The enterprises, which exceed their operation scope, must be investigated and punished. As to the enterprises engaged in illegal financial activities, once being identified, their license should be revoked and the parties concerned should be investigated for liability.

    5.Standardise the transaction of state-owned land, ban speculative land dealing

    Land used for trade, tourism, entertainment, and luxurious houses, in principal, should be supplied in the way of bidding or auction. Conveyance, rent, or mortgage of transferred land for the first time must conform to the provisions of law and the requirements agreed upon in the transference contract, those not conforming to the requirements should not be conveyed, rented or mortgaged. The use right of conveyance and rent of allocated land should be approved by the people's governments with approving authorities.

    It is prohibited to speculatively trade land in disguised forms by using construction projects, planning license or land use sketch with red line. For a construction project of which the project has been approved, if its construction use land conforms to the land use plan, the procedures for using land must be gone through within a specified time limit.

    Where transaction of the land use right is involved in the reformation and restructuring of a state-owned enterprise, the land should not be sold at low price, and a schedule for settling land assets should be worked out, the enterprises subordinated to the Center Government should choose the schedules which may abate the burden of the central finance and submit them to the competent department of land administration under the State Council for approval.

    As to transaction of land use right is involved in the marketing of purchased public residents or economical and applicable residents, the returns from land must be turned over to the State.

    6.Comprehensively clean up land conveyance and speculative land trading, decisively investigate and punish illegal conveyance of land use right and illegal transaction of land collectively owned by farmers

    The people's governments of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government should organize a comprehensive cleaning up of the illegal land conveyance and speculative land trading within their respective administrative areas. The emphasis should be put on the areas connecting cities and villages, especially the illegal used land along highways on which structures, buildings are privately, or disorderly built. For those that conforming to the overall plan for land use but not undergoing the relevant procedures according to the provisions, it must be gone through within a specified time limit, where no declaration is made by the expiration of the time limit, the matter should be investigated and punished as illegal occupancy of land.

    Examine those land-using projects for attracting trade and selling land with the titles of "orchard" or "manor"; in accordance with the principle of "Who ratified will be responsible", properly deal with the problems. As to those violating regulations, the party concerned will be examined and punished. If their conduct is serious enough to be regarded as crime, the judiciary will investigate and punish them. Before the examination completes, approval of the projects for "orchard", "manor" or "agriculture for visiting" should be stopped. Perfect the report system, strengthen the supervision by the people and the media, timely punish the conduct of speculative land dealing  

    The relevant departments of the State Council and the people's governments of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government should seriously implement the spirit of this Circular, formulate corresponding implementing measures and related implementing rules, ensure the implantation of the provisions on strengthening the management of land conveyance and strictly banning speculative land dealing.

    The people's governments of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government should report the circumstances of the cleaning up of land conveyance and speculative land dealing to the State Council by the end of December 1999. The State Council is to instruct the Ministry of Land and Resources, together with the other departments, to take the responsibility in supervising and checking the implementation and fulfillment of this Circular, and regularly report to the State Council.