Tian Fengshan
 

Treasure Resources While Constructing
Minister Tian Fengshan of Land and Resources said during the last NPC and CPPCC sessions that due to the huge population base and the trend of continuous growth,

 
 

 

 

the basic national condition of relatively deficient resources will remain unchanged. So caution must be used to treasure the limited resources in the course of western development.

It must be recognized what an important and arduous task it is to treasure the limited land and resources, said Minister Tian. The most rigorous management of resources should be adopted. Adequate attention should be paid to comprehensive planning to balance population, resources, environment and social development. The legal obligation of compensated occupancy of farmland should be conscientiously fulfilled. Administration according to law should be advocated, and law enforcement and supervision strengthened. Eventually a pattern of economic development based on resources conservation should be developed.

He said that over the last few years, idle and low-efficiency utilization of urban construction land as well as the reckless building of big roads, big squares and big development zones have been seen reducing. However, in rural areas, idle land, the possession of multiple houses by one household, and extra land-use are quite common. The "numerous, small and scattered" mining enterprises remain the main source of extensive and wasteful development of mineral resources. The national rate of mineral resources recovery is only around 30 percent, 20 percentage points lower than the world average. Owing to multi-departmental management and multi-channel export, the frantic exploitation and excessive export of advantageous mineral resources such as tungsten, tin, antimony and rare earth have not been effectively curbed. In consequence, China is losing its superior status in resources.

President Jiang Zemin has reiterated that in order to transform the resources advantages of the western areas into economic advantages, the principle of rational utilization and resources conservation must be persisted in. Although the strict control of non-agricultural land use yielded apparent results last year, construction undertakings took as much as 206,467 hectare of cultivated land, reducing 436,600 hectare of cultivated land (of it 394,600 hectare of grain plots were returned). The protection of cultivated land remains an arduous task that permits no remissness. The legal obligation of "compensated land use" must be rigorously fulfilled.

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