Agriculture ministry seeks feedback on 2024 Land Law revisions

Land pricing must reflect the State’s role as the representative of land ownership and its decision-making authority on land prices, according to the revisions.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Environment is collecting feedback from relevant agencies on the amended 2024 Land Law after one year of its implementation.

According to the ministry, the law has shown several shortcomings after one year, especially related to land use planning in the two-tier local administration.

The requirement to prepare annual land use plans at the district level has increased administrative procedures, prolonged the time needed to access land and delayed land utilisation.

The 2024 Land Law allows areas with urban or rural planning to forgo separate land use planning, using these existing plans for management instead.

However, in practice, the coverage rate for urban and rural planning remains low.

In many localities, planning does not cover the entire administrative boundary, meaning that despite having plans, local authorities still need to prepare additional land use plans. This leads to overlaps and a waste of resources, according to the ministry.

The ministry has noted that there are currently no legal provisions for land recovery on projects with specific location requirements or for urgent or emergency projects serving political or diplomatic purposes, such as those for APEC or projects within free trade zones, international financial or logistics centres.

The ministry also highlighted several issues related to land recovery, compensation and resettlement that need to be amended in the law.

In terms of land pricing, the ministry emphasised that the State, as the representative of land ownership, should exercise its authority to control and determine land prices.

The ministry has proposed eliminating the market-based approach in determining land prices in favour of allowing the State to set land prices directly.

Land pricing must reflect the State’s role as the representative of land ownership and its decision-making authority on land prices, according to the revisions.

Valuations from various land pricing methods would serve only as reference materials for the State in determining official land prices.

As for the land price framework, the ministry has proposed two options for revision.

Under the first option, the Government would issue a land price list once every five years instead of annually, as is done currently.

Price lists would be developed based on zones and specific locations.

The second option proposed by the ministry would eliminate the concept of specific land prices and reintroduce the use of a land price adjustment coefficient (K coefficient).

The K coefficient reflects the percentage increase or decrease for specific areas or locations and is used to adjust prices listed in the five-year land price framework on an annual basis.