The Ministry of Agriculture and Environment has just sent the draft Law on amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Land Law to the Ministry of Justice for appraisal.
In the dossier, the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment proposed to add Clauses 33, 34 and 35 to Article 79. Accordingly, 03 cases of State land recovery for socio-economic development for national and public interests are added (Article 79):
(1) Implement emergency public investment projects to serve political and foreign affairs tasks; projects in free trade zones, in international financial centers; logistics projects; mixed-use projects for residents, urban areas, tourism, commercial services, culture, sports and other purposes; cultural industry projects and other socio-economic development projects decided by the provincial People's Council in accordance with local actual conditions.
(2) In case of using land to implement an socio-economic development project through an agreement on receiving land use rights, the agreement must be completed after the deadline or the extension period must be extended and the agreement has been reached for over 75% of the land area and over 75% of the number of land users, the State will reclaim the remaining land area to allocate land and lease land to the investor.
(3) Create a land fund for leasing land for continued production and business as prescribed in Point d, Clause 3, Article 124 of the 2024 Land Law.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, the addition of the above regulation is to institutionalize the content of amending and supplementing Resolution No. 18-NQ/TW proposed by the Government Party Committee approved by the Central Executive Committee in Resolution No. 69-NQ/TW: "Research and consider expanding land acquisition cases for socio-economic development for national and public interests in accordance with practical situations".
The Ministry said that in reality, there are many land-use projects (urban renovation projects, mixed-use projects, free trade zones, international financial centers, logistics, tourism, commercial services, culture, sports, etc.) with large areas, contributing large revenues to the state budget from land use fees, land rent, taxes from added values, creating many jobs for local workers, promoting the development of auxiliary business services in the project area but there are no regulations for the State to reclaim land, causing difficulties in the process of land access and project implementation.
At the same time, there is no regulation on land recovery to create land funds for land lease to continue production and business for investors who lease land and pay annual land rent but have to relocate from the old location due to environmental pollution or have to reclaim land for national defense, security, and socio-economic development purposes for national and public interests, leading to production and business stagnation due to lack of space to continue production and business.
In fact, many projects are implemented under the agreement mechanism of receiving land use rights transfer, but there is a small part of the area that investors cannot negotiate with land users, leading to a situation of "suspended projects", causing waste of land resources, slowing down investment progress and causing difficulties for investors.
