China eyes villages in property registration

BEIJING - Chinese authorities on Sunday issued a notice to step up registration of rural land use rights and property above the land, along with such efforts in cities.

This is the first joint notice ever issued by five departments to stress coordinated moves for property registration in both cites and villages, as the two have been divided in various administrative measures.

The five departments are the Ministry of Land and Resources, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the Ministry of Agriculture and the State Forestry Administration.

Buildings above the rural land will be registered amid the country's efforts to set up a property registration system and it will help protect farmers' rights and improve governments' administrative efficiency, according to the notice.

In rural China, farmers do not own the land they are plowing or build their houses on, as it is collectively owned, but they have the rights to use it.

The government has been trying to set up a network which will collect property ownership information from different places. This will enable the government to know who owns what.

The system would also make it easier for the government to levy property tax on all homeowners, making it more expensive to keep a lot of homes.

The State Council earlier this year asked the Ministry of Land and Resources to propose a property registration system by the end of June.

On July 30, the State Council said it discussed a draft of an interim regulation on property registration, which will be publicized to solicit public opinions.

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