Business     

CITIC Trust launches rural land trust product

China.org.cn, October 16, 2013

• Zhang Jisheng, deputy general manager of CITIC Trust. [File photo]

  CITIC Trust Co., Ltd., one of China's biggest investment firms under the financial conglomerate China CITIC Group, has recently launched a collective trust scheme to transfer contracted rural land operation rights, the first of its kind in the country.
  
  

  CITIC Trust will lease 5,400 mu (360 hectares) of land from farmers in Suzhou City, Anhui Province and transfer the right to operate on it to a local agricultural company in Anhui, Deputy General Manager Zhang Jisheng said yesterday in Beijing. The trust plan will last 12 years.

  Local farmers, in return, will get a steady income for their land, including a land use fee and 70 percent of the revenue gained from future developments on the land.

  A modern agricultural recycling economic pilot zone will be built on the 360 hectare plot, featuring modern farming, a water-conservation project, and biological energy and agricultural R&D, according to Wu Chaojie from CITIC Trust.

  This trust scheme comes following China's land reform plan to boost large-scale, professional farming and accelerate the country's urbanization.

  Currently, China's rural land is collectively owned. Farmers have the right to use contracted land but are not allowed to sell it on the market. The present household-based, small-scale farming model is not able to meet the demands of economic development and the growing urban population.

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