1.Policy background and main content
In 2016, implemented the decisions made on the third, fourth and fifth plenary sessions of the 18th CPC central committee, and the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's speech made on rural reform symposium held in Xiaogang Village of Fengyang, Anhui Province, rural collective property rights system reform work centered on researching and enacting reform guidance documents, organized the well implementation of reform pilot activities including actively developing farmers share cooperation and share power and function reform of collective assets, achieved obvious results, which laid solid foundation for further exploring effective realization forms of rural collective ownership, innovating rural collective economy operation mechanism, protecting famers5 collective assets rights and interests, and motivating farmers' enthusiasm to develop modern agriculture and build socialist new rural areas.
1) Studied and formulated guiding documents for rural collective property rights system reform. The central No. 1 document of 2015 raised: “roll out opinions on steady promotion of rural collective property rights system reform”. Following central requirement, the MoA and central rural work leading group office took the lead, joint by Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Land and Resources, Ministry of Civil Affairs, State Council's Legal Affairs Office, and State Council's Development Research Center, formed a document drafting team, and researched and enacted guiding documents for rural collective property rights system reform. On the basis of in-depth investigation, summarizing local experience, and wide opinions seeking from experts and scholars, the team formed documents ready for reviewing. On Jan. 11，2016, the draft was reviewed and passed on the 20th meeting of the central comprehensively deepened reform leading group, on November. 10，the draft was reviewed and passed on the meeting of the standing committee of the political bureau of CPC Central Committee, and on December. 26, the State Council's Opinion on Steadily Promoting Rural Collective Property Rights System Reform ([2016] No. 37, referred to as "Opinion" below) was officially issued. The Opinion made an overall deployment for rural collective property rights system reform, is a long-term governing, fundamental-governing and profound rural system innovation, and is the general creed in guiding rural collective property rights system reform in the coming period.
2) Carefully organized and implemented share power and function reform pilot for rural collective assets. Firstly, enhanced promotion training, worked with related departments to enhance work guidance, organized special-subject trainings, conducted two trainings for more than 270 people, including leaders and liaison personnel at provincial-level pilot contact units, and party and government leaders with relevant duties and related personnel in pilot counties (cities and districts), promoted central policy spirit, and deployed pilot work. Secondly, organized supervision and inspection, twice joint with central rural work office and Forestry Bureau, among other departments, organized experts to visit 27 pilot counties (cities and districts) and carry out supervision and inspection, conducted special-subject investigation under the 2016 activity of “hundred villages ten thousand households investigation” by MoA cadres, and urged each pilot county to carefully follow central requirement and organize the implementation of pilot work. Thirdly, used seminars to exchange situations, held communication forums for the pilot work of share power and function reform of rural collective assets, exchanged typical experience, discussed questions, and comprehensively understood the situation of pilot progress.
2. Main achievements
1) The reform policy for rural collective property rights system was clear. With in-depth research on relative questions of rural collective property rights system reform, and the release of the Opinion, the reform thought gradually became clear, and policies were also further clear. Should gradually establish a Chinese characteristic socialist rural collective property rights system with clear ownership, complete power and function, smooth transfer and strict protection. In the process of promoting reform, should correctly grasp reform direction, stick to the bottom lines of laws and regulations, respect farmers' willingness, orderly promote reform with classification, and adhere to party leadership. Comprehensively launched rural collective assets liquidation and confirmation, identification of membership of rural collective economic organizations, orderly promotion of joint-stock system reform of operating assets, full coverage of rural collective economic organizations, and strengthening rural collective economy with multiple-form development. Rural collective property rights system reform is major reform with backbone features, the reform adopted a leadership and work mechanism of provincial-level comprehensive responsibility and county-level implementation, party secretaries of each level especially county and township party secretaries personally take the command, and shoulder leadership responsibilities. Relevant departments should pay special attention to the implementation according to duty division. Researched and enacted various reform-supporting policies, and laws in aspects of rural collective economic organizations, and created good policy and law environment for the reform.
2) Share power and function reform pilot of rural collective assets received obvious achievements. Each pilot county (city and district) based on practical conditions, following central deployment and reform pilot plan requirement, adopted a series of powerful and distinctive reform measures, and pilot work achieved positive progress and effects. In the 29 pilot counties (cities and districts), 13 counties (cities and districts) launched assets liquidation and confirmation in whole-county scope, and other counties (cities and districts) carried out the same action mainly in pilot villages; Pilot counties (cities and districts) all launched membership identification work, as 16 counties (cities and districts) made whole-county scope deployment and implementation, and 20 pilot counties (cities and districts) specially rolled out guiding opinions for membership identification for collective economic organizations; Pilot counties (cities and districts) all actively explored ways to quantify shares of collective operational assets to each person, and determine rights to households, as 24 pilot counties (cities and districts) employed static management (no change at birth or death) on equity that had been quantified to each person; Pilot counties (cities and districts) all carried out pilot projects for rights of possession and income rights, as 10 pilot counties (cities and districts) launched pilot projects for paid-out exit rights and inheritance rights, and nine pilot counties (cities and districts) explored to launch pilot projects for mortgage rights and guarantee rights, through setting up membership equity account book, issued collective assets equity certification, implemented the rights of possession for members, and strictly limited paid-out behaviors to happen within the collective economic organizations. Daxing District of Beijing specified that the collective assets shares of urban residents changed from rural residents can be properly handled via inheritance, internal gifting or compensatory transfer, among other methods, and stipulated that in order to safeguard the basic living of members who transferred equity, the transferred proportion must not exceed 50 percent of the shares held. To prevent manipulation by a small number of people, the assignee's stakes must not exceed 15 percent of the total equity. Wenjiang District of Sichuan Province stipulated that equity mortgage value evaluation should be based on the annual expected return of farmers' shares, different shareholders can offer mutual guarantee with expected return on equity, and loan interests floating shouldn't exceed 30 percent of the benchmark interest rate. Currently, the district already dealt with 2 cases of asset stock-backed secured loan, with a loan amount of 200 000 yuan.
3) The joint-stock system reform of rural collective operational assets was steadily promoted at each region. With the gradual deepening of pilot work of rural collective assets share power and function reform, policy thinking of each reform became gradually clear, each region5s enthusiasm and initiative in promoting reform was gradually boosted, and reform was pushed forward steadily. As of end of 2016, a total of 67 000 villages and 60 000 villager groups nationwide already completed the reform, village-level organizations with completed reform gave out an accumulated stock dividend of 284 billion yuan to farmers, with the dividend of 2016 reaching 43.41 billion yuan, and the proportion of villages that finished reform in Beijing, Shanghai and Zhejiang Province accounted for 95 percent of the total.
