Using land for the people

Behind the call by most provinces and autonomous regions for more land quotas is the urge for higher gross domestic product (GDP) and more income from land sales, which definitely goes against the central government's strategy for transformation of the country's development mode.

At a meeting convened by the Ministry of Land and Resources on Thursday last week, almost all of the 31 provinces and autonomous regions claimed that their land use quotas only met one-third of their needs.

However, official statistics show that many of them have large areas of land left undeveloped even though they have had approval for some time.