By Han Jun, vice-minister of the Development Research Center of the State Council (DRC), and Wu Zhenjun, Research Department of Rural Economy, the DRC

Research Report No 85, 2014

Abstract:

As urbanization grows, the scale of Shanghai's township collective property gets larger, with nearly 70 percent of total rural collective assets.

Over the past few years, the city has had many policies for the Songjiang and Minhang districts, including a fixed assets and circulating funds reappraisal, membership rights clarification, township association development, and assets management and administration standardization, with a lot of effort reforming township collective property rights.

It has also made progress in collective property clarification, maintaining or increasing the value of collective assets, increasing farmers' incomes, cutting the cost of collective assets management, and increasing prosperity.

This survey has found some problems in Shanghai's township collective property reforms, such as difficulties in assets distribution and in identifying the township association status of legal persons, the integration of government administration and enterprises, and the high cost of collective assets ownership transfers.

The research suggests that township collective property continue to change in privatization and shares of collective assets.