Beijing to Expand the Amount of Land Available for Construction

According to a December 2 report in the Beijing News, the city of Beijing has already exceeded planning targets for land used in construction and will conduct a major overhaul of its land use plan to make it “more suitable for the needs of the capital’s social development.” Beijing officials claim that the current land use plan, adopted in 1999, was based on inaccurate numbers generated from surveys in the mid-1990s and did not adequately predict the amount of land that would be needed for construction. The announcement seems to run counter to the spirit of a State Council land management circular released in October, which called for stricter land management and efforts to reduce the amount of arable land used for urban construction (see related story here). Beijing officials claim that the Ministry of Land and Resources has given them the green light to revise the city’s land use plan.