People's Governments of all provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government; all ministries and commissions and directly affiliated institutions of the State Council:

       In order to implement the spirit of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Party and the Central Economic Work Conference, and in accordance with the relevant provisions of the "Land Administration Law of the People's Republic of China", on the premise of strictly protecting cultivated land and economizing and intensively using land, we will further deepen the "streamlining administration and delegating power, improving regulation, and strengthening services" reform, reform the land management system, and grant provincial people's governments greater autonomy in land use. The following decisions are hereby made:

        1. The power to approve the conversion of agricultural land other than permanent basic farmland into construction land, which can be authorized by the State Council, shall be delegated to the people's governments of all provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government for approval. From the date of issuance of this Decision, in accordance with the provisions of the third paragraph of Article 44 of the "Land Administration Law of the People's Republic of China", the State Council authorizes the people's governments of all provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government to approve the conversion of agricultural land other than permanent basic farmland into construction land in batches according to the annual land use plan within the scope of the construction land scale of cities whose overall land use plans have been approved by the State Council; in accordance with the provisions of the fourth paragraph of Article 44 of the "Land Administration Law of the People's Republic of China", the State Council authorizes the people's governments of all provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government to approve the conversion of agricultural land other than permanent basic farmland into construction land outside the scope of the construction land scale of cities and villages and market towns determined in the overall land use plan.

       2. A pilot program will be conducted to delegate the power to approve the conversion of permanent basic farmland into construction land and the approval of land expropriation by the State Council to the people's governments of some provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government. From the date of issuance of this Decision, the State Council entrusts the people's governments of some pilot provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government to approve the examination and approval of the conversion of permanent basic farmland into construction land as stipulated in the second paragraph of Article 44 of the "Land Administration Law of the People's Republic of China", and the examination and approval of land expropriation as stipulated in the first paragraph of Article 46 of the "Land Administration Law of the People's Republic of China", where the area of permanent basic farmland and cultivated land other than permanent basic farmland exceeds 35 hectares, or the area of other land exceeds 70 hectares. The first batch of pilot provinces are Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Guangdong, and Chongqing. The pilot period is 1 year. The specific implementation plan shall be formulated by the people's governments of the pilot provinces and submitted to the Ministry of Natural Resources for record. The State Council will establish and improve an evaluation mechanism for the land use approval work of provincial people's governments, and dynamically adjust the pilot provinces according to the comprehensive evaluation results of the land management level of each province, autonomous region, and municipality directly under the Central Government. The State Council will withdraw the entrustment for pilot provinces that are continuously ranked low or fail the assessment.

       3. Relevant requirements. The people's governments of all provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government shall strictly review and control in accordance with laws, administrative regulations, and relevant policies, especially strictly review the land use involving the occupation of permanent basic farmland, ecological protection red lines, and nature reserves, effectively protect cultivated land, economize and intensively use land, revitalize stock land, safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of farmers whose land is expropriated, and ensure that the relevant land use approval rights are "delegated, accepted, managed well". The people's governments of all provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government shall not further authorize or delegate the accepted land use approval rights.

       The Ministry of Natural Resources shall strengthen the guidance and service for the land use approval work of the people's governments of all provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government, clarify the approval requirements and standards, and effectively improve the quality and efficiency of approval; it shall take measures such as "double random, one public" to strengthen the supervision and inspection of land use approval, promptly urge corrections upon discovering violations, and promptly report major issues to the State Council.

                                                                                                                               State Council

                                                                                                                               March 17, 2020