CRI听力： Annual Communist Party Meeting to Focus on Rural Reform

The Communist Party of China has started its annual meetings in Beijing.

Focusing on agricultural issues, the third Session of the Seventeenth Central Committee will lay stress on accelerating reform and development in the country's rural areas.

Land reform has been put on top of the agenda, as many experts believe adjustments surrounding land policy will be critical to rural reforms. Our reporter Xiaoyu has more.

Reporter: Dang Guoying, a research fellow with the 'Institute of Rural Development' at the 'Chinese Academy of Social Sciences', says by adjusting land ownership, farmers' property land rights can be guaranteed.

In the meantime, the overall efficiency of land resources will be largely improved. Otherwise, China will suffer severe economic losses given the vast population and limited farmland available here.

"With regards to national security, we must protect our arable land. The 120 million hectares of available arable land is critical for China. We shouldn't let the amount of arable land fall below that figure."

Moreover, Dang Guoying stresses, the country should promote permanent land contract policies to ensure farmers' stay on the land.(Www.hxen.net)

"We should establish a legal system to send a strong signal about protecting farmers' land rights, and empowering the farmers to have a say about the adjustments of land ownership. It's not only good for farmers to better protect their property land rights, but also to avoid local governments and officials from abusing their power."

From 1978, China adopted a policy of collective land ownership for its 750 million rural dwellers, in which villages or townships assumed land ownership. Households manage land, usually on a small scale, for 30-year periods through contractual agreements with villages or township communities. But after years of development, the collective system became the obstacle in developing local rural economy in many areas in China. Adjustment in land policies thus became the urgent issue in government work agenda.