From Yahoo.com:
Eighty percent of illegal land use in China is due to corrupt local officials flouting regulations, state media said on Friday. China’s land ministry offered that figure in a plea to local governments to rein in rampant illegal development, saying it was contributing to a dwindling of the nation’s arable land, the China Daily newspaper reported.
“The work to crack down on illegal land acquisition cases should be put at the top of the agenda,” it quoted the Ministry of Land and Resources as saying. Land Minister Xu Shaoshi said an all-out effort was needed to prevent arable land dipping below 120 million hectares (297 million acres), a level long viewed as the minimum required to feed the nation of 1.3 billion people. [Full Text]
See also: China’s local governments ordered to shape up on arable land protection from People’s Daily Online.
