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Land system loopholes need to be plugged
By Chen Hong (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-07-29 11:38

The effort has yielded fruitful results: Of the country's 6,741 development zones, 4,735 were found to have violated certain rules and regulations and will soon be deleted from the list.

Under various guises - high-tech development zones, trade and business development zones, software gardens and industrial gardens - these to-be-deleted areas cover 24,100 square kilometres.

The most dramatic reduction is in the nation's capital. Beijing shortened its list of development zones from 470 to 28, and the city's total area of development zones has been cut by 53.74 per cent.

Faced with these figures, it is hard to decide whether to feel relieved or puzzled.

The central government's initiative has no doubt resulted in an impressive achievement which deserves applause.

Since being introduced in the late 1990s, development zones have flourished in China. Local governments turn farmland into development zones to vie for investment in the hope of developing local economy. With low land costs, the zones attracted investors.

But those located in remote area with poor infrastructure facilities turned out to be less appealing. Most from that category were left untouched and were a pure waste of land.

Such "underdeveloped" development zones often resulted in environmental concerns and worsened the lives of the relocated former residents.

But driven by the eagerness to pursue GDP growth, many local governments would rather indulge such waste than back off from the fever of establishing more development zones with all means available.

Therefore, the central government's high-profile reduction campaign has effectively squeezed the bubbles and reined in the huge waste of resources.

Given the country's all-out effort to boost agriculture and protect farmland, this campaign obviously has far-reaching significance.

However, one thing is clear: The more impressive the achievement to prevent such waste, the more blatant the waste threatens to become.

Prior to this campaign, the planned area for development zones was 37,500 kilometres, which is bigger than the total area of land used for development in cities and towns are allowed to occupy.

Even if the central government has control of the situation now, the huge losses already incurred cannot be recouped.

More importantly, people cannot help wondering what kind of eagerness is behind such fever.

The pursuit of economic growth by local officials is understandable, but why should most of them choose development zones as the means to realize that end? Some may attribute it to being out of touch with scientific planning.

The point at the core of this issue is the problematic system of land.

Entitled to take over rural land for "the public interest," local governments can obtain land at a modest price and turn it into development zones at a much higher price. Even if the zones do not attract enough investment, the GDP is still "created" in the transference, which can then improve the officials' performance.

Therefore, the land system is one of driving forces for brewing the development zones.

If this system is not changed, new forms of "development zones" will flourish after this current campaign winds down.

Hopefully, the government's impressive achievement will not just be a temporary showcase.

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