1. Policy background and main content The Central Committee of the CPC and the State Council attached great importance to the management of rural collective assets and finances, as were shown in each year's No. l Central Documents.
The No. l Central Document in 2014 put forward that, the management of rural collective funds, assets and resources should be enhanced, and the management of collective economy organizations' assets should be improved, in order to develop rural collective economy. To follow the guidance of the No. l Central Document, the MoA took several measures, which set a firm foundation for stimulating the development of agriculture and rural areas, and sped up the construction of urban-rural integration development mechanism.
(1) The verification and evaluation of nationwide rural collective assets were comprehensively summarized. Rural collective assets form an important material basis for developing rural economy and realizing farmers' common prosperity, which plays a significant role in developing the collective economy, advancing the service of collective economy, and increasing farmers' property income. In order to get a clear picture of rural collective assets and liquidize the assets, the Mo A supervised the verification and evaluation of rural collective assets, and submitted a report to the State Council. The report comprehensively summarized the situations of rural collective assets, verification and evaluation, systematically stated the positive effects of the verification and evaluation, analyzed the main issues of rural collective assets' management, and proposed ideas and suggestions for the next step.
(2) The construction of second batch of demonstration counties for rural collective assets management was launched.
In 2012, the MoA initiated the construction of demonstration counties for rural collective assets management, which greatly improved the supervision and management of collective assets and the construction of rural collective assets managing organizations. In recent years, local governments have worked diligently to innovate management measures and expand duties, which set good examples for rural collective assets management. In order to enhance the guiding function of demonstration counties, the MoA released a notification on constructing the second batch of demonstration counties nationwide for rural collective assets management, which designated 155 counties (cities or districts), such as Haidian District in Beijing, as the second batch of demonstration counties, so as to push forward rural collective assets management.
(3) The platform construction for rural collective assets management was actively promoted.
The development of a supervision and management platform for rural collective assets, finance and resources has been accelerated. The acceleration of the platform is an important way to increase the quality and efficiency of rural collective assets management. But currently the informatization level of the management is still lagging behind, as 44 percent of villages have not realized accounting computerization, but using accounting methods behind the times. In order to comprehensively understand the situations of rural collective assets management organizations, and protect farmers' democratic management and democratic supervision rights, the MoA created a basic planning outline of the platform construction based on their researches, so as to promote the information platform construction for rural collective assets management and its integration into the central and regional governmental platforms.
(4) Nationwide inspection and research on rural financial management were conducted.
Village financial management is the important foundation and guarantee for using rural collective assets, developing collective economy, and legally protecting farmers，distribution rights. In 2013, the MoA worked with the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the National Audit Office to issue a document on further advancing and regulating village finance management, which explicitly pointed out that efforts should be made to perform the village accounting duties, improve the democratic supervision mechanism of village finance, reinforce audit supervision of rural finance, and enhance the rural accounting team building. In order to standardize rural finance management, the MoA conducted nationwide inspection and research. Through county-level self-inspections, provincial selective inspections and ministerial supervision, special researches were conducted on the enforcement of the document, rural finance management, democratic supervision, financial transparency, audit supervision and rural accounting team building.
2. Main achievements
(1) Efforts were made to get a clear picture of rural collective assets, setting the foundation for property rights institutional reformation.
Local governments clarified varied funds, assets, resources, and the rights of creditors, debtors and owners, by conducting rural collective assets verification; they also disclosed the verification outcomes to earn recognition of the people. After the clarification and verification, rural collective assets were recorded in photos and digital documents, and collective land, uncultivated land, shoals, water plane, construction land and other resources' location and area were registered in detail, which laid a solid foundation for the institutional reform of rural collective property right. By the end of 2013,2.4 trillion yuan of rural collective assets was on record, with an average of 4.084 million yuan for each village; the total area of rural collective lands was 446 million hectares, including 369 million hectares of cultivated land, woodland and other agricultural land.
(2) Efforts were made to improve the regulations and standardize the asset financial management.
Based on four ministries' requirements in the documents, local governments established and improved regulations to further standardize the management of rural collective assets and finance. Counties and townships in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Gansu strictly required that all the incomes and expenses should be legal and valid, and the expenses have to go through democratic procedures to get approval; the hand-off, renting and transfer of rural collective welfare projects and collective assets and resources must involve bidding. Guangdong, Zhejiang, Hunan and some other places included rural collective assets and resources into the information management platform of rural collective funds, assets and resources, conducted public trades, and enacted trade rules and an accountability system, which lay a solid foundation for standardizing the management of rural collective assets and finance.
(3) Efforts were made to build management platforms, so as to improve asset financial management.
Local governments established rural collective assets information monitoring systems, involving functions such as hierarchic management, real-time supervision, warning and correction, data sharing, and information service, in order to comprehensively improve the supervision and management of rural collective assets. So far, seven provincial platforms, 85 municipal platforms and 1 570 prefectural platforms have been built. The province-to-village information management has been realized in Beijing, Shanghai and Heilongjiang and several other provinces, so as to standardize rural collective assets management and promote informatization.
(4) Efforts were made to harmonize relations between village cadres and the masses, so as to further ensure the harmony and stability of rural society.
The lack of transparency and standardization in rural collective assets management is an important factor of triggering farmers' group petitions, and worsening cadre-mass relations. In 2013, 23 percent of rural petitions were related to the management and distribution of collective assets. The advancement of collective assets management has reduced farmers' doubts and conciliated cadre-mass conflicts on one hand; on the other hand, it inspired grassroots participation in supervising and managing collective assets, developing rural collective economy, and defending property interests. The effect of democratic supervision worked especially well in contract award, engineering construction, tenders and bids. The former subsequent supervision was changed to supervision that lasts through the whole process, which has regulated village cadres' behavior, prevented rural corruption, ensured transparency, and promoted the construction of the party's work style and clean governments at grassroots level.
