1. Policy background and main content Confirmation, registration and certification of rural land contracting and management rights are major reform deployed by central government. Since 2009, seven central No.l documents consecutively required the active, steady, orderly implementation of confirmation, registration and certification of rural land contracting and management rights work. The No. 1 document in 2013 clearly pointed out "use about Five-Years to basically complete the confirmation, registration and certification of rural land contracting and management rights work"，and specified overall schedule target. The No.l document in 2014 again emphasized "firmly grasp and practically implement the confirmation, registration and certification of rural land contracting and management rights work"； at the end of the same year, General Office of the CPC Central Committee and General Office of the State Council issued Opinions on Guiding the Orderly Transfer of Rural Land Management Rights and Developing Agricultural Moderate Scale Operation ([2014] No.61 by General Office of the CPC Central Committee), and made systematic deployment for the confirmation, registration and certification of rural land contracting and management rights work. The No. 1 document in 2015 raised "expanding whole-province promotion and pilot range, and required to confirm land by households overall"； The No. 1 document in 2016 again emphasized "grasping time to complete the rights confirmation, registration and certification for resource-based assets including land".
2. Main measures in promoting policy implementation Relevant departments at each region carefully implemented the decisions and deployment of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, concentrated forces, and further reinforced the efforts in pilot work of rights confirmation, registration and certification at contracted land. Firstly, enhanced deployment and guidance. In February 2016，the MoA held national work conference of confirmation, registration and certification of rural land contracting and management rights, summarized pilot experiences, enhance work arrangement, specifically put forward the requirement of "losing no time in the progress, quality guarantee, well use of fund, and achievement transfer"， and guided each region to promote pilot work rapidly with high quality. Secondly, set strict work requirements. Targeting at the issues investigated in early-stage supervision and guidance, and reported by each region, in April 2016, the MoA, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Land and Resources, National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geo-information co-issued Notice on Further Well Conducting Relevant Work of Confirmation, Registration and Certification of Rural Land Contracting and Management Rights, raised specific requirements centering on 10 aspects, including strictly following work procedure, standardizing procurement behavior, and enhancing process supervision and inspection, and standardized the implementation of pilot work. Thirdly, enhanced supervision and inspection. In 2016，the MoA organized personnel to visit 22 provinces including Shandong, Anhui, Guangxi, Hunan, Inner Mongolia, Jiangsu and Shanghai city to carry out field investigation and supervision, focused on guiding the provinces with relatively rapid progress to launch inspection and acceptance and looking back, and made supervision and rectification for slow progress and loose quality control, among other situations. Fourthly, promoted platform construction. On the basis of in-depth early-stage investigation and research, in order to conduct good top-level design, at end of June, the MoA issued Construction Plan for Rural Land Contracting and Managing Rights Information Application Platform in the form of document, specified the construction goal, main task, key content, core framework and completion progress of national rural contracted land database and information application platform, and required each region to lose no time in studying and formulating a provincial-level construction plan. Fifthly, explored results application. The good implementation of confirmation, registration and certification work of rural contracted land is the basis of effectively promoting land transfer, security guarantees, paid-out exit, and exchanging divided land, and in order to promote continuous bonus release, the MoA in 2016 selected 14 counties (cities) to carry out results application pilot for rural contracted land rights confirmation, and actively explored effective approaches in promoting the solving of contracted land fragmentation, developing moderate scale operation, among others.
3.Policy implementation situation and effect evaluation To implement the central government's requirement of "use about Five-Years to basically complete the confirmation, registration and certification of rural land contracting and management rights work" , each region considered local condition, and specified the schedule of relevant work. As of end of 2016, Shandong Province and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region already reported to CPC Central Committee and the State Council on its basic completion, 12 provinces including Hunan, Hubei and Jiangsu planed to basically finish before end of 2017, and Heilongjiang Province and Inner Mongolia planed to basically finish by 2018.
Following the unified central deployment, in 2016, the confirmation, registration and certification of rural land contracting and management rights work continued to expand whole-province pilot range, on the basis of selecting Shandong, Sichuan and Anhui provinces in 2014, and selecting Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Gansu, Ningxia, Jilin, Guizhou and Henan provinces (regions) to launch whole-province pilot, the MoA selected another 10 provinces, i.e., Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Heilongjiang, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Hainan, Yunnan and Shaanxi to conduce whole-province pilot, with the total number of whole-province pilot reaching 22. At the end of 2016, the pilot range nationwide expanded to 2 582 counties (cities, districts), 30 000 townships, 512 000 administrative villages, and completed measurement on an area of 83.333 3 million hectares, and confirmed rights on an area of 56.666 7 million hectares. In general, pilot work progressed smoothly, reached obvious achievements, solved longstanding issues including the inaccurate measurement of contracted land area, and unclear four-side boundaries, promoted the transfer of land management rights, and promoted the optimal configuration of land resources and the process of urbanization.
