China Daily Global Edition (USA)
Changes weighed to help farmers keep land rights
Rural Affairs Committee, said the current law has played a key role in rural economic development, keeping order in rural areas and increasing the incomes of farmers since it took effect in 2003.
“But to meet higher requirements of rural development, it needs a revision,” Liu said.
The draft revision will better define the use rights of rural land, so that farmers can enjoy “sufficient and guaranteed protection of their land rights”, he said.
Since the country adopted the household responsibility system in the early 1980s, property rights associated with rural land have been divided into two layers: the ownership right, referring to its collective ownership by a rural community (normally a village), and the use right that is held by an individual household that contracts a piece of land from the village.
The draft revision further separates the use right into the “contract right” and “management right”, according to Liu, who regarded it as a positive innovation.
The separation, as proposed by the draft, would allow farmers to retain contract right over their allowed land, and only transfer the management right if they choose to lease the land to others, mortgage it to banks or invest it in a cooperative in exchange for shares.
More than 30 percent of rural households have transferred their contracted land, totaling 31.9 million hectares, Liu said.
“In the past, we sometimes hesitated to rent more land out of concern that our business might suffer if the status of the land changed when the contract runs out. That’s because the current law limits our leasing rights to 30 years,” said Jin Weiran, who has rented rural land to plant vegetables in Rizhao, Shandong province, since 2007. “But now, I feel reassured.”
“Xi’s report and the draft revision means that what I paid in the rented land in the first several years can be rewarded after the land contract is extended,” he said.
Yu Liufen, Party chief of Yanbo village in Guizhou province, said land is the farmers’ lifeline, and they will no longer worry about uncertainties if the extension is approved.
The top legislature on Tuesday heard a draft bill extending a nationwide pilot program to prevent corruption.
Li Jianguo, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, explained the draft a plenary session, which was presided over by Zhang Dejiang, chairman of the Standing Committee.
By the end of this year or early 2018, supervisory commissions will be set up by people’s congresses at provincial, city and county levels across the country, to ensure that “all public servants exercising public power” are subject to supervision, according to a plan circulated by the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee on Sunday.
In January, pilot reforms were launched in Beijing and in Shanxi and Zhejiang provinces.
Submitted for its second reading on Tuesday, the draft further clarifies the liabilities of e-commerce operators and punishments for infringement of consumer rights. The bill classifies e-commerce operators into three entities: “those doing business on their own websites; e-commerce platform operators; and stores on e-commerce platforms”.
Under the draft, e-commerce operators would be registered with the industry and commerce administrations, except for those that sell homegrown farm produce or handmade products, and others who by law do not need to be registered.
Operators should not infringe consumers’ rights by posting false advertising, transaction information or user comments.
They should deliver products and services as promised and bear the risks and liabilities of transportation.