China's first attempt at distributing sea use rights through publicly listing them at local land markets has failed due to a lack of market experience on the part of the local authorities.

"None of the sea use rights have attracted any applications during their two weeks' listing time," Wang Jiyu, an official with the oceanographic authority of the city of Beihai in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region said yesterday.

Wang agreed to a comment from the local land market that the authority had overpriced the use rights.

"This is the first time that we have used listing to decide the use rights. We should have done more market research in order to decide the starting prices," he said.

All of the three target sea areas, each with an area of 33.4 hectares, are located to the northwest of Dijiao Town. Winners of the use rights are supposed to use the sea areas for fishing and aquatic raising for three years. The starting price for each of the three is 150,000 yuan (US$18,115.9).

Wang also said that the city's two successful public bidding processes for the rights earlier this year had made the bureau too confident about the supposed results of the listing procedure.

The city first used public bidding to decide the use right of sea areas attracting more than three interested bidders, which is the legally required number in order to ensure that the process is fair. The second bidding process took place on March 29, in which the use rights for 12 sea areas were up for grabs.

The authority set the starting prices for the listed sea use rights based on those who have already won the two bids, without conducting enough research, according to Wang.

"We should have taken into full consideration the difference between the two practices," he said.

Wang called the practice of public listing a development of public bidding. "Listing is a more responsible practice, giving the applicants more time to ponder over their decisions," he said.

Wang disclosed the city will try listing again in the near future.

A Dong, director of the Division of Marine Management of the State Oceanographic Administration (SOA), called the listing practice of Beihai a valuable trial, even though it failed this time.

"At least, local governments are trying hard to implement effective sea use management measures, which are fairer, transparent and more orderly," he said.

(HK Edition 08/01/2003 page2)