By intern reporter Zhang Yanling

(Caijing.com.cn) China has approved requisition of 234,000 hectares of rural land near cities for construction projects in the first five months of 2009, accounting for 55.7 percent of the full-year quota, Lu Xinshe, vice minister of Land and Resources, said at a news conference here on June 23.

The quota covers farmland, reclaimed land that was previously unfit for use and so-called rural construction land collectively owned by local villagers. The vice minister did not provide specific figures for each category.

An expected 200 million rural residents will migrate to cities and towns by 2020, supplementing the current urban population of 600 million. The government is under increasing pressure to provide land on which to build the infrastructure necessary to support the country’s rapidly urbanizing population.

Against those requirements,

China must also preserve 120.3 million hectares of farmland until 2020 to maintain food security. The country only had 121.7 million hectares of farmland in 2008, leaving just 127,000 hectares of farmland that can be converted.

China has in recent years converted 267,000 hectares of waste land or disused farmland annually into useable land, Lu said.

A National Development and Reform Commission official earlier urged the government to more intensively develop so-called rural construction land on the outlying areas of Chinese cities.

Full article in Chinese: http://www.caijing.com.cn/2009-06-23/110188249.html