The full text of the Amendments (Draft) to the Land Administration Law of the People's Republic of China and to the Urban Real Estate Administration Law of the People's Republic of China, deliberated at the Seventh Session of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress, has been released for public comments by February 3, 2019.

The Amendment (Draft) to the Land Administration Law, encompassing 29 articles, abolishes a former provision that "construction activities carried out for non-agricultural purposes must utilize the State-owned land or the land formerly collectively-owned but already expropriated by the State, a move to remove the legal barrier to the circulation of collective land for the construction use into the market. Also, to narrow down the scope of land expropriation and standardize procedures for land expropriation, it clearly defines specific circumstances for allowable collectively-owned land expropriation and adds extra processes, such as "assessing social stability risks" and "signing the contract first and then processing the examination and approval of land expropriation", to the said procedures. Furthermore, for the purpose of optimizing the protection mechanism for farmers with their land expropriated, it modifies the provision requiring that compensation offered for the land expropriated shall be several times the annual yield from the land, and proposes better social security and higher housing compensation for farmers facing land expropriation.

 (Source: http:// www.npc.gov.cn )