Land compensation may go up 10 times

The Chinese government may substantially increase compensation for the expropriation of rural collective land, according to a draft amendment to the land management law approved by an executive meeting of the State Council on Wednesday.

Although there is no official news about the content of the revised items, experts predict that the revisions are mainly about raising the compensation for rural collective land expropriation by tenfold, Beijing Times reported.

The current land law says compensation for rural collective land expropriation and relocation should be no more than 30 times the average annual output of the land three years before it is seized, which means less than 100 yuan ($16.05) per square meter.

However, local government can sell the expropriated land to real estate developers at 10,000 yuan per square meter. The wide gap between the compensation and sale price of the land causes much tension between farmers and local government in rural areas, according to Jiang Anming, a law professor at Peking University.

The increased compensation will help ease the tension. Besides, not all of the compensation will go to the farmers as local government may still receive a share through tax, Jiang added.