Beijing's Daxing District will auction off a 308,700-square-metre parcel of State-owned "golden land'' in an effort to attract more outside money.

The December 8 auction will be the first large-scale sale of State-owned land in Beijing since 2000. It is expected to lift the curtain on a new round of market-driven reforms involving State-owned lands in the capital, said Wang Huimin, head of the district's government, yesterday at a press conference.

The land to be auctioned is located on the north end of Daxing's Huangcun Satellite City, where the infrastructure -- such as power supply, telecommunications, water and roads -- are in place after three years of construction, Wang said.

The bail for the auction will be 20 million yuan (US$2.4 million).

All local and foreign enterprises, organizations and individuals are invited to participate.

The benchmark price for the parcel of land has been set at 430 million yuan (US$52 million), according to auction documents released last Friday.

To date more than 10 companies have expressed their intentions to attend, officials said. The winner of the auction will obtain the usage rights of the land for the next 70 years as a residential building or 40 years as subsidiary commercial projects.

Daxing, which is one of the recently established districts of Beijing, has boosted its investments on infrastructure projects, said Shen Taichang, Party chief of Daxing.

For example, more than 2 billion yuan (US$241 million) has been invested each year to improve infrastructure, roads and the local environment, he said.

During the first three seasons, the district has spent 5.8 billion yuan (US$699 million) on fixed assets, up 27.7 per cent from the previous year, Shen said.

Xie Jingrong, vice-director of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Land Resources and Housing, said a system of purchases and reserves has been instituted in the capital to guide the use of State-owned lands in accordance with market practices and to create an open, transparent and fair investment environment.

To that aim, Beijing has adopted a series of regulations and documents to form the legal framework on the management of land resources, he said.

Since July 1, Beijing has stopped ceding State-owned lands. All the State-owned lands used for business, tourism, offices, entertainment and commercial housing must be acquired on the land market through purchases, auctions and bidding, Xie said.

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