How to understand the land system reform in the process of urbanization

In the process of rapid urbanization in China, the role of land system can not be ignored. If the household registration system has played a restrictive role in the process of urbanization, then the land system has played a positive role for at least a long time.

If we analyze the essence of urbanization in China, it is actually the process of non-agricultural population. If the household registration system is taken as an important indicator to measure the level of urbanization, the urbanization rate in China is only about 36%. The difference between the registered population and the statistical urban resident population is about 17 percentage points. The so-called 17 percentage point of the permanent population is the farmers who work in cities and towns. That is to say, according to the average annual growth rate of 1 percentage point, since the mid-1980s, more than 1000 million farmers have switched from agriculture to non-agricultural industries every year. With the ignition of non-agricultural industries from village to village, smoke gradually concentrated in cities and towns, and farmers' non-agricultural employment gradually concentrated in cities and towns, becoming a statistical urban population.

First, the positive role played by the current land system.

Township enterprises, which gradually emerged in the 1980s, occupied almost half of the national economy. Many people ignore a very important institutional factor, that is, farmers use the land of collective economy to set up township enterprises, which attracts a large number of farmers to engage in non-agricultural industries at almost no cost. Even later, with the land system further strengthening many restrictions on the establishment of township enterprises on collective land, cities and towns can still use the current land policy to set up development zones, expropriate land at low prices, attract investment and develop industries, and increase a large number of non-agricultural employment opportunities, so that investment growth since the 1980s has played a key role in increasing non-agricultural employment opportunities. If we now look at all the development zones in various towns, the local government's price of industrial land provided by investors, excluding the government's infrastructure investment, is almost zero or negative for attracting investment.

Of course, the low-cost land acquisition policy has also played a positive role in improving urban infrastructure. If there is no low-cost land acquisition, the government will pay too high a cost in the negotiations with farmers, which will greatly slow down the transformation of urban infrastructure, improve the appearance of towns and the supply of infrastructure will also be seriously inadequate. Due to the rapid economic growth in the past 30 years, the face of this city is changing with each passing day. Only in the course of decades' development can we compare with the developed countries in the west. The reason lies in taking land at a low price, reducing costs and selling it at a high price to obtain land transfer fees, which solves the problem of the source of capital construction funds for urban development. It cannot be said that it also depends on the current land acquisition system.

Second, the negative impact of the current land system

Although the land system has played a positive role in the growth process, it continues to enjoy the benefits of the land system because of the restriction of interests and is unwilling to adjust the land use policy. Today, with the rapid growth of urbanization, the proportion of negative effects is also increasing greatly, making the future reform more difficult. 1, the dependence on land leasing makes the urban sprawl flat and expand, which increases the cost of infrastructure construction and maintenance.

Because the government has to increase the area of the development zone, sell land at zero land price and absorb industrial investment for the growth of industrial investment. In order to make up the cost, it is necessary to increase real estate development, obtain high land transfer fees, maintain the cost of industrial land and ensure the source of infrastructure investment. As a result, the development path of the city has to form a trend of plane expansion through various land transfer methods. The bigger the pie spread, the longer the infrastructure supply front, and the higher the investment and maintenance costs. The vicious circle has led to a serious dependence on the current land system. 2. The extensive expansion of cities and towns formed by the land system has seriously restricted the development of service industry.

The history of urban development is the process of the gradual growth of service industry. From the experience of developed countries, when the urbanization rate reaches more than 50%, the proportion of service industry will dominate, and when it reaches more than 60%, the service industry will grow at a high speed, accounting for 2-3 times of the industrial proportion, and the main potential for absorbing employment lies in the service industry. However, the development path of China's urban expansion has seriously restricted the development of service industry. The development of service industry requires high urban population density, and the service radius of service industry can obtain scale benefits in unit time. The urban development model of spreading cakes has greatly increased the radius of service industry and raised the cost of service industry. 3. The current land circulation system has formed an excessive dependence on industrial development.

The land transfer mode makes the city expand the land development in disorder, and relies on the land transfer fee to maintain the development and operating costs of the town. Because the development of service industry is seriously lagging behind and the employment in service industry is seriously insufficient, the government can only rely on traditional industrial development channels to solve the problems of fiscal revenue and employment growth. Even in the coastal developed areas where the urbanization rate has reached more than 60%, the development policies of local governments still emphasize industrialization as the leading factor. Although this industry-oriented model emphasizes industrial upgrading, it restricts industrial renewal because the industry needs low land cost as a condition. However, the continuous dependence on industrial growth has also brought about environmental pollution and a substantial increase in the number of migrants, which has brought hidden worries to the future sustainable development and low-carbon development of the city. 4. The current land transfer system intensifies the short-term behavior of the government.

Because the land transfer fee is levied annually, the government can quickly obtain a large number of short-term benefits through low-cost land acquisition, which also encourages the government's short-term behavior. Every city government can satisfy the subjective decision-making behavior led by government officials through huge land transfer income, making the urban development model superficial, short-term and visual, while ignoring the long-term interests of the public, the transformation of the old city and the infrastructure investment related to the health and safety of residents. The superposition of short-term behaviors also makes the follow-up government still rely heavily on land transfer fees due to interest induction. 5. The current land transfer system makes it difficult for the government to realize the market-oriented transformation of infrastructure management and financing.

Although real estate tax reform is being discussed at present, the income still cannot make up for the huge expenses owed by the urban infrastructure. The income from land transfer, which is easy to realize by compulsory land acquisition, has become the welfare expenditure of urban residents through short-term behavior in urban infrastructure investment. Moreover, this kind of welfare is becoming more and more solidified, and the reform is more difficult. Worldwide, the operating funds and investment sources of urban infrastructure depend on the intervention and financial participation of market-oriented investors. The establishment of repayment and income mechanism needs the support of government real estate tax, market-oriented infrastructure, efficient management mechanism and reasonable price mechanism. Although real estate tax reform, which is related to real estate tax, is gradually developing, it is difficult for the state-owned system of infrastructure management without reform to achieve inefficient operation in a short time. What is more difficult is the welfare of the infrastructure charging system, which makes it difficult to face the public's doubts and challenges and the corresponding reform is more difficult. 6. The current land expropriation system has also aggravated the contradiction between the government and landless peasants.

Demolition and construction, forced demolition and forced expropriation, let residents see the high income of real estate developers. This serious interest imbalance has caused the psychological imbalance of landless peasants, and the continuous occurrence of malignant cases of groups and individuals caused by dissatisfaction with compensation has also aroused strong social reactions. It is also an important source of current social dissatisfaction.

Due to the limitation of space, many problems cannot be detailed one by one. At least, we can see that the land system dividend we have enjoyed since the reform and opening up has been released, and the negative impact has become a serious shackle in the process of economic growth and urbanization. If there is no corresponding policy adjustment and bold reform, the debt crisis faced by urban development may become more and more serious, and the speed of non-agricultural employment transfer will be greatly slowed down in the future, and the so-called sustainable urbanization road will be difficult to achieve.

Third, the idea of land acquisition system reform.

Many people want to privatize overnight, but I think the problem is that they have not fundamentally understood the adjustment of interest structure in the process of reform. This is not a simple question of farmers' interests, nor how much room for growth will be released through so-called privatization. But chose a development path different from other countries in the world. The solution to the problem lies in how to adjust the interests and ensure that the growth mechanism is not seriously bound. The first is to increase the proportion of rights and interests of collective land in urban development, that is to say, to gradually realize the same rights of urban and rural land in the process of urban development.

Generally speaking, local governments are worried about whether it will affect the income of land transfer fees. Of course, it will affect short-term income, but it will increase the government's tax revenue and long-term income through the adjustment of tax structure. It can also restrain the short-term behavior of the government. As to whether farmers' income is too high, it is a matter of interest distribution between developers and farmers, which should actually help alleviate the pressure of excessive social income distribution gap. The most important thing is to reduce the cost of urban development, and farmers' own development can reduce the excessive cost of developers. Secondly, as long as it does not involve the occupation of cultivated land, farmers are allowed to develop industrial zones on collective construction land to achieve various commercial development purposes.

This will not only help to reduce the development cost, but also help to rationalize the industrial layout, make the industrial layout transfer to the outer suburbs of the city as soon as possible, and reduce the pollution pressure in the central city. Moreover, the development of farmers themselves is also conducive to reducing the development cost of service industry. To develop the service industry in your own house and land, at least you don't need to repay the bank loan, and you don't need to pay the house purchase money or rent to the developer. These costs are very important to the public and low-middle consumers. Third, speed up real estate tax reform, reduce the proportion of land transfer fees in government revenue, increase the long-term behavior of the government, and curb short-term behavior.

However, the difficulty of this reform needs the support of other reforms, such as the reform of urban and rural land system, especially the definition of property tax on rural collective land and houses. It is also necessary to solve the problems left over from history and the definition of land transfer period. Fourthly, we should reform the urban infrastructure investment and operation management system accordingly, reduce the government's dependence on land transfer, and solve the dependence of various financial models of urban development funds on land from the system.

For example, transferring the shares of state-owned infrastructure enterprises can solve the short-term investment pressure of the government. In accordance with the market-oriented mechanism, formulate reasonable infrastructure charging standards to ensure that enterprises do not lose money or reduce the pressure of loss in infrastructure operation.