Reported in the China Daily.com (1/8/06) To expose and curb rampant illegal land acquisitions, new regulations, released by the Ministry of Land and Resources, stipulated that all land for business, tourism, recreation, commercial property and other profitable purposes should be transferred through public bidding and auctions. ”The process and final results of bidding and auctions should also be made public,” the ministry spokesman said yesterday. “Land transaction will be transparent and be monitored by the public.” Previous scenario/background before this new release: 

• In most regions, the government has transferred land through negotiation with investors, which led to rampant corruption; 
   
• The ministry’s statistics indicated that the government transferred 163,000 hectares of land nationwide last year, but only 35 per cent of it was dealt through bidding and auctions. The ministry considered this an achievement, representing an increase from 14.5 per cent in 2002. 
   
• There were irregularities in the old practices of land transactions. For example, some local governments withheld information concerning the land, lay obstacles for some bidders and even use underhanded deals to transfer land; 
   
• Due to lax land management, resulted in a growing landless population, overinvestment and a decline in the amount of arable land.
   

Some statistics on declining land availability: China had 122 million hectares of arable land last year, down from 130 million hectares in 1996. According to the ministry, it needs at least 106.7 million hectares of cultivated land to feed its theoretical peak population of 1.6 billion in 2030. Premier Wen Jiabao expressed concerns last week that too much land has come to real-estate development, the transfer cost of land for industrial purposes is still low and illegal occupation is still rampant. Much stricter measures must be employed to curb the trend,” Wen said.

 Hopefully, by instituting the sale of government lands by public auctions and bidding, this can at least alleviate some of the previous unscrupulous under-the- table land deals.