The Ministry of Land and Resources issued a regulation yesterday
requiring public bidding on land use to be carried out in a uniform
way.
"After the new regulation becomes effective on July 1, investors
should no longer find our land bidding procedure puzzling," said
Wang Shouzhi, deputy director of the Department of Land Utilization
Management under the ministry.
During a four-year pilot phase to mobilize local governments to
transfer use right of State-owned land through public bidding, the
ministry allowed different regions to design their own bidding
procedures under the country's Land Law and the Law of Urban Real
Estate Management.
But because the procedure varied from one region to another,
investors were constantly having to adapt.
Wang said the new regulation would stipulate every step of a
"valid" public bidding and would be especially welcomed by foreign
investors because it mirrors rules used in the world market.
"Now that China is a member of the World Trade Organization,
foreign investors should find the Chinese market similar to the
world market instead of a strange one filled with confusing
stipulations," he said.
All Chinese administrative regions, except the Tibet Autonomous
Region, have tried transferring use right of State-owned land
through public bidding since the ministry recommended the practice
in 1999.
The Tibet Autonomous Region has not adopted the practice because
the ''comparably poorer natural and economic conditions there have
attracted insufficient interested real estate developers.''
The use right of 10,387 hectares of State-owned lands were
transferred through public bidding nationwide between 1999 and
2001, involving 95.2 billion yuan (US$11.5 billion).
There are no statistics about how many foreign investors have
participated in such a bidding, but the number is quite large, said
Yue Xiaowu, director of the department's Property Division.
Yue said the ministry reviewed foreign investors' complaints during
the pilot phase. In addition to the disparity in bidding procedures
among the various regions, many foreign investors complained about
the procedure's lack of transparency in general.
But the regulation ensures fairness by requiring bidding
information to be released 20 days beforehand, providing the same
references to all qualified bidders, making collective decisions
and publishing bidding results for the public.
Besides, the public bidding will be automatically stopped if there
are less than three bidders for a single piece of land.
"This, combined with the establishment of a collective decision
mechanism, makes major contributions to stopping individuals from
manipulating the bidding," Yue said.
"All local officials found to have imposed unfair influence on the
bidding process will be punished."
(China
Daily May 16, 2002)