The details of rural land reform determine the success or failure

With regard to the reform of the entry of rural commercial construction land into the market, it is possible to speed up through the Green Light Act recently authorized by the National people's Congress on 33 cities and counties. But it should be noted that this reform is not easy. As early as the third Plenary session of the 17th CPC Central Committee in 2008, it was proposed to establish a "unified urban and rural construction land market". Such a relatively important reform goal has now been transformed into a narrow and specific reform of "rural collective construction land into the market". It can be said that the reform of the rural land system as a whole tends to be prudent. In the author's opinion, the reform authorization of the National people's Congress certainly embodies the new thinking of "reform according to law", which is worth affirming, but from the inherent requirements of the land system reform, the current reform deployment is only the beginning. the evolution of reform in the future is bound to produce new authorization requirements.

There are several difficulties in "entering the market of rural collective construction land":

First, the distribution of rural commercial construction land is too scattered, and often mixed with village houses, which is not conducive to centralized planning and utilization. Small enterprises that meet urban life are suitable for layout in the city and its surrounding areas, while agricultural products processing enterprises need a certain scale, and three mu and five mu of land is not easy to use. The supporting enterprises of the manufacturing industry also need to have a certain degree of concentration, which is not good to be scattered in the village. If sporadic commercial construction land is used for commercial housing development, it means that commercial housing and farmers' houses are mixed together, which brings problems to infrastructure construction. If the landscape contrast between the two types of housing is too large, it will also damage the value of commercial housing, which brings difficulties to attracting investment.

Second, the boundary between rural commercial construction land and non-operating construction land is not easy to determine. The author learned that the farmers in a certain village "voluntarily" returned their homestead to the collective, and the collective regarded these homestead as commercial construction land. From a legal point of view, it is difficult to think that this practice is unreasonable. However, if most villages do so, it will be meaningless to distinguish between commercial construction land and non-operating construction land.

Third, a large number of rural commercial construction land has been occupied, the utilization efficiency is not high, but it is difficult to recover. Some local governments have taken some measures, such as compensation for the benefits of early termination of the contract, to let the owner of the land use leave. However, because the compensation is not in place, the effect is not good, resulting in some conflicts. Some villages have recovered the land, but also did not solve the problem of reuse, so that the interests of many parties have been hurt.

Despite these problems, reform should be promoted. To paraphrase an old saying: "details determine success or failure." The following measures can be considered in the reform:

First, we should make good use of the policy space of the Ministry of Land on "linking the increase and decrease of urban and rural construction land" to centralize the sporadic operational construction land. The author thinks that the Ministry of Land can appropriately increase the index of "increase and decrease peg", and even consider abolishing the index limit of "increase and decrease peg" in 33 counties and cities.

Second, we can consider giving local governments more autonomy, so that the overall construction of the village and the construction of commercial construction land after entering the market can be considered as a whole. In the construction link, all the construction land in the village is planned and built together, but in the link of "entering the market", only part of the assets are arranged for public sale according to a certain proportion. This can not only improve the efficiency of the use of land resources, but also improve the quality of life of farmers. Of course, this should also be combined with "increase and decrease linked" assets, and renovation cannot be promoted in every village in an all-round way.

Third, with the help of this reform, we should also innovate the realization form of the collective economy. The entry of commercial construction land into the market is a very important reform level, but there is also a reform level that follows. In most cases, operational construction land will form a new form of "collective assets" after entering the market, and this part of the assets will clarify the interest relationship through the establishment of shareholding system. If this kind of reform arrangement is made, there will also be the question of whether this part of the shares of farmers can be "marketed", that is, farmers are allowed to sell these shares publicly. The author thinks that the reform at this level needs to be put on the agenda sooner or later.