Illegal land use gives year-end GDP boost

BEIJING - With only three months left in the year to drive up GDP, China's local governments may gobble up land for economic development, posing a severe challenge in protecting the country's shrinking arable land, an official warned on Tuesday.

Illegal land use may become rampant in the last quarter of the year as land supply cannot meet the fast-growing need, Wang Ling, deputy director of the law enforcement and supervision administration under the Ministry of Land and Resources, said at a news conference in Beijing.

The country's central and western parts have seen the worst offenders, where local governments are drumming up economic development to close the gap with the prosperous eastern coast.