It is believed that the lawmakers will adopt the committee's suggestion on
December 29 when the current session ends.
As part of the draft civil
code, the property bill was submitted to the NPC Standing Committee for the
first review in 2002 and withdrawn from the NPC full session last March amid
worries that the draft, the country's first specific law to protect private
ownership, might undermine the legal foundation of China's socialist
system.
The draft was further revised last August to install state
ownership at the heart of the economic system after 15,000 suggestion from the
public were pooled. It also added measures to prevent fraudulent acquisitions
and mergers of state assets.
The latest version, which tries to strike a
balance between private property and state ownership, says all market players
enjoy equal legal status and rights for development.
It adds new clauses
that prohibit illegal possession, open looting, private partition, withholding
and demolishing of state assets. Similar clauses were also added for the
collective and private property.
The NPC Standing Committee members are
also debating new clauses to the law that will allow farmers to prolong their
land contracts when the contracts expire.
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