Land increase and decrease linked to inter-county transfer

Recently, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Anhui and other provinces have begun to brew policy innovation in the transfer of "cross-county" indicators linked to increase and decrease, and some provinces have begun to deploy pilot projects to explore first. It is reported that the Ministry of Land and Resources has begun to include the feasibility of "the pilot project of linking increase and decrease on the basis of the county" into the scope of discussion, reflecting the latest trend of land reform in our country.

At present, Guangdong Province has basically decided to carry out the pilot project of cross-county turnover index linked to increase and decrease in Qingyuan and Yunfu cities.

Increase or decrease the "magic" of the hook

In June 2008, the Ministry of Land and Resources issued the measures for the Administration of the pilot Project of linking the increase and decrease of Urban and Rural Construction Land, which substantially started the pace of the pilot project of linking increase and decrease. The so-called "link between increase and decrease" refers to linking the reduction of rural collective construction land with the increase of urban construction land. Specifically, it means that according to the overall land use planning and under the constraints of the turnover index, the "increase" and "decrease" of urban and rural construction land must be controlled within the scope of the project area, through engineering measures such as construction, demolition and land renovation, to ensure the dynamic balance of the quantity and quality of cultivated land, especially cultivated land in the project area.

The pilot project of linking increase and decrease is essentially an adjustment of the relationship among rights, responsibilities and interests between the central and local governments in terms of land use and management. Before that, in order to implement the basic national policy of cultivated land protection, the central government tightened the land supply index downwards, which made the local government face a greater bottleneck of land use power in the economic development. The pilot policy of linking increase and decrease is equivalent to providing a new channel for local governments to obtain land use indicators, that is, through the reclamation and consolidation of rural collective construction land, the corresponding construction land indicators can be used for urban construction and development. for most local governments facing tight land use indicators, it undoubtedly has a very strong incentive effect.

Since the introduction of the pilot policy of linking increase and subtraction, it has attracted much attention from all walks of life. Because the policy is connected with the vast number of farmers' houses and traditional village culture on one end, and the land use indicators and development impulses of local governments on the other. In some areas, there has even been a bad phenomenon of "forcing farmers to go upstairs" in order to vacate land targets, causing a great social shock. To this end, in recent years, the State Council and the Ministry of Land and Resources have continuously issued binding policies at the macro level, trying to carry out very strict, meticulous and comprehensive supervision and regulation of the pilot policies and projects linked to increase and subtraction.

However, the policy of linking increase and decrease has not stopped in the above disputes and norms, and, from the actual situation, this pilot policy has shown an overall trend of expanding year by year in scope and scale in recent years. Since 2006, the number of linked pilot provinces has increased from 5 to 29, basically covering the whole country, while the arrangement of linked turnover indicators has increased from about 74000 mu to 900000 mu in 2013. Obviously, with regard to the pilot policy of linking increase and decrease, the central government not only strictly controls the local government, but also constantly encourages it, showing a "dual nature" of attitude and action.

At the same time, as the specific operation of this pilot policy, the local government has a strong impulse to operate outside the project and expand the trading scope of indicators. The local government hopes to get rid of the various rules and regulations set by the central government in the hook pilot, so as to gain more independent power and full benefits in the implementation of the hook project. Among them, urban and rural construction land can only be linked within the county, and the linked indicators cannot be transferred across counties, which is based on the basic role of the central government in the development of local economy in our country. as well as a special binding provision set in order to ensure that the overall risk of the linked project can be controlled.

To a certain extent, this rigid regulation restricts the hands and feet of the local government to move around on the land, and there is a certain loss of efficiency. Because, for those county economies in which the resources of rural collective construction land are gradually scarce, but the index demand for urban construction land is more and more intense, it constitutes a great restriction. For those county economies with relatively loose resources of rural collective construction land, because of their inactive county economy, the tension of urban construction land indicators is not strong. Furthermore, it is impossible to raise enough funds for the implementation of pilot projects linked to increase and decrease and the excavation and activation of stock construction land indicators. As a result, the local government has a strong demand to break through the relevant regulations of the central government and achieve the allocation of linked indicators in a larger scope. This demand and voice has appeared since the introduction of this pilot policy, and innovative experiments have been organized in some places.

The progress of local pilot projects

At present, Guangdong Province has basically decided to carry out the pilot project of cross-county turnover index linked to increase and decrease in Qingyuan and Yunfu cities. In September 2014, Qingyuan and Yunfu cities have begun to actively prepare for the preliminary pilot work. According to the pilot work plan, the main content of the pilot project of cross-county circulation of linked indicators is that after the turnover indicators give priority to ensuring the construction and development of local urban and rural areas, the balance is publicly traded within the city in a market-oriented way. From this point of view, the pilot projects in Qingyuan and other places belong to the inter-county transfer of "balance-linked indicators". This policy pilot should be carried out on the basis of ensuring that the demand for land supplied to the counties and districts is met, and the local economic development opportunities should not be sacrificed. But the key problem of this pilot project also lies in this, how to accurately estimate the land demand of county development? How to coordinate the short-term and long-term interests in the development strategy of county economy?

In the pilot reform plan submitted to the Guangdong provincial government, Qingyuan City said that there is an imbalance in reclamation resources in various parts of the city, such as the northern mountain counties (cities and districts) are rich in reclamation resources and low reclamation costs, but the demand for land is relatively small; the situation in the southern urban area, which is the focus of economic development in Qingyuan City, is the opposite. The city hopes that carrying out the pilot project of turnover index circulation can further invigorate the existing land, be conducive to the economic development of the whole city, and realize the functional planning of the main district at the municipal level. Obviously, we can not see the attitude and position of the county-level governments in this plan. But it can be expected that under this plan, the Qingyuan municipal government must have strong regional capacity and resources to co-ordinate and deploy various county economies. At present, the actual situation in our country is that there are few prefecture-level cities with such super-county capacity and resources.