Natural resources such as land, ocean and energy are the material basis, space carrier and energy source of economic and social development. In the new year, how to ensure that these natural resources elements and macro policies work together to support high-quality economic development? How to firmly hold the red line of 1.8 billion mu of cultivated land and ensure national food security? What new progress has been made in building a beautiful China where man and nature coexist harmoniously? Wang Guanghua, Minister of Natural Resources, accepted an exclusive interview with a reporter from CCTV.
Optimizing the guarantee of resource elements and stabilizing the economic market
Wang Guanghua said that since 2022, faced with the impact of unexpected factors, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council have adopted a series of macro-control measures to maintain overall economic and social stability. In order to implement the deployment of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, the Ministry of Natural Resources has issued a series of policies to ensure the use of land and sea elements, which strongly supports the stabilization of the economic market.
Accelerate the compilation of land spatial planning at all levels to provide spatial planning basis for the landing of major construction projects. The delineation of three control lines, namely, the national red line for the protection of cultivated land and permanent basic farmland, the red line for ecological protection and the urban development boundary line, has been completed in an all-round way, and the first "multi-regulation" national land spatial planning outline has been compiled, making arrangements for the national spatial development, protection, utilization and restoration pattern.
Continue to adhere to the land elements to follow the project, and enhance the pertinence of land use planning. For the project land included in the key protection, the planning indicators will be directly allocated when the land is approved; For other project sites, indicators will be arranged according to the local digestion of existing construction land, which will force the use of existing land to be revitalized.
Take unconventional measures, combine the use of advance land use, commitment system and other security policies, and promote the implementation of effective investment in important projects.
Accelerate the approval of land use and sea use, support the real economy and related industrial industries to reduce the cost of land use, and so on.
At present, the effects of various policies have been shown, and many projects will be started in an all-round way this year, which will play a huge role in stabilizing growth and promoting stable economic development. Wang Guanghua also specifically told reporters that in 2022, there was no legally established regulation project that started due to the impact of land use and sea use.
Appropriately increase land planning indicators to ensure major projects.
In 2023, the Ministry of Natural Resources will conscientiously implement the major deployment determined by the Central Economic Work Conference, continuously optimize the policy of ensuring natural resources elements, and work together with macroeconomic policies to promote the overall recovery of economic operation.
What are the supporting policies in 2023? Wang Guanghua is clear:
In 2023, land planning indicators will be increased, major projects established in the 14th Five-Year Plan will be supported to accelerate construction, and modern infrastructure construction in urban agglomerations and metropolitan areas will be supported.
By increasing the efforts to revitalize the use of historical reclamation, priority will be given to ensuring the use of sea for major projects and people’s livelihood projects; New reclamation continues to be strictly controlled, but the demand for sea use for major national projects is guaranteed.
Promote the "streamline administration, delegate power, strengthen regulation and improve services" reform of land use approval authority, so that provincial governments have greater autonomy.
Launch a new round of domestic prospecting for strategic minerals in an all-round way to ensure national energy security
Strengthening the domestic exploration and development of important energy and mineral resources, increasing reserves and increasing production, and improving the national strategic material reserve support capacity are one of the important tasks deployed by the Central Economic Work Conference.
China, as a big manufacturing country, must take the energy rice bowl into its own hands in order to develop the real economy. According to relevant statistics, some important mineral resources in China are highly dependent on foreign countries. Once the international situation changes, it will inevitably affect China’s economic security and even national security. In the past decade, China has promoted the implementation of the Strategic Action Plan for Prospecting Breakthrough (2011-2020), and accumulated 1.7 billion-ton oil fields and 21 billion-cubic meters of gas fields. This year, the Ministry of Natural Resources will highlight the shortage and bulk strategic minerals, focus on important oil-gas-bearing basins and key metallogenic belts, launch a new round of domestic prospecting for strategic minerals in an all-round way, speed up the exploration and development of energy resources such as oil and gas, and ensure the safety of national energy and mineral resources.
Adhere to the coordination between ensuring resource security and protecting green mountains and green hills. Wang Guanghua said that he will organize and implement the strategic reserve project of mineral land, promote the increase of reserves and production, and enhance the long-term support capability of strategic mineral resources. For the strategic mineral resources potential areas within the red line of ecological protection and nature reserves, the state will invest in key exploration, and then use them as strategic reserves for future generations or for coping with extreme situations. At this stage, we will focus on protecting green mountains and green rivers, and in the future, technological progress can give consideration to both up and down before mining.
Strictly observe the red line of cultivated land and promote the green transformation of economic and social development
Report to the 20th CPC National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to consolidate the foundation of food security in an all-round way, fully implement the responsibility of the party and the government for food security, firmly hold the red line of 1.8 billion mu of cultivated land, and ensure that Chinese’s rice bowl is firmly in its own hands. In 2022, the national total grain output reached 1.37 trillion Jin, which effectively responded to the uncertainty of the external environment with the certainty of stable domestic production and supply.
Wang Guanghua said that the General Secretary of the Supreme Leader attached great importance to the protection of cultivated land, stressed the need to protect cultivated land like a giant panda, and adopted hard measures of "teething" to ensure that 1.8 billion mu of cultivated land deserved its name. The Outline of National Land Spatial Planning (2021— In 2035), it is also clear that the national farmland protection task target is 1.865 billion mu, which will remain unchanged until 2035. Wang Guanghua said that withCompaction, stabilization, optimization and legislationThese eight words resolutely curb the "non-agricultural" of cultivated land, effectively prevent the "non-grain" of permanent basic farmland, and take many measures to ensure that this goal is achieved as scheduled.
Compaction, stability and optimization of legislation to ensure national food security
Compaction:Protection responsibility of compacted cultivated land. According to the deployment of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, responsibility letters will be signed at different levels, and the party and government will share the responsibility for farmland protection, and strict assessment, one-vote veto on major issues and lifelong accountability will be implemented.
Stability:Stabilize the total amount of cultivated land. Fully implement the "two balances and one freeze", the cultivated land occupied by non-agricultural construction should be balanced, and the cultivated land converted into other agricultural land and agricultural facilities construction land should be balanced. For those occupied by illegal construction, the same amount of supplementary cultivated land indicators should be frozen to ensure that the cultivated land can be used stably for a long time.
Optimization:Optimize the layout of cultivated land. Taking villages and towns as a unit, we will promote the comprehensive improvement of land in the whole region, so that the spatial layout of agricultural production will be more in line with the natural geographical pattern and agricultural production laws, and all kinds of agricultural production will be in their proper places.
Legislation:Accelerate the legislation of farmland protection. In 2022, farmland protection legislation was launched, and this year, the legislative process will be accelerated and promoted as soon as possible, so as to protect farmland and ensure national food security with a stricter rule of law system.
Increase ecological protection and restoration to help build beautiful China.
With the increasing efforts of ecological protection and restoration in China, great strides have been made in the construction of beautiful China. As the main department responsible for ecological protection and restoration, the Ministry of Natural Resources continues to implement the integrated protection and restoration project of mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes, grass and sand to enhance the diversity, stability and sustainability of the ecosystem.
Wang Guanghua told reporters that just last month, the "China Landscape Project" was selected as one of the first ten "flagship projects of world ecological restoration" by the United Nations, which showed our concept of respecting nature, adapting to nature and protecting nature internationally and effectively spread the ecological civilization thought of the supreme leader.
According to the latest data, from 2016 to 2022, the country implemented 44 "landscape projects", involving natural ecosystems such as forests, rivers, wetlands, lakes and coastal zones, and the accumulated ecological protection and restoration area reached 3.5 million hectares. According to the Ministry of Natural Resources, this year, a number of "landscape projects" will be launched in the Yangtze River and Yellow River basins, focusing on national key ecological function area, the red line of ecological protection and nature reserves, and a beautiful scene of harmonious coexistence between man and nature will be vividly displayed in China.
In the future, about 50 national parks will be built throughout the country.
China’s ecological space control has become stricter, and the red line of ecological protection has been basically completed, covering the key areas of biodiversity protection in the country. Wang Guanghua said that the State Council has approved the spatial layout plan of national parks, and will gradually build a number of national parks throughout the country to accelerate the formation of a nature reserve system with national parks as the main body.
Activating the potential of geographic information data to serve the new format of digital economy
In addition to farmland protection and ecological protection and restoration, geographic information industry is also the industry in charge of the Ministry of Natural Resources. Wang Guanghua said that with the improvement of science and technology, all aspects of our lives can enjoy the convenience brought by geographic information technology, such as mobile navigation, bike-sharing and smart travel. Not long ago, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued opinions on building a basic data system and giving full play to the role of data elements, which provided a rare opportunity to activate the potential of geographic information data. China Geographic Information Industry Development Report 2022 shows that the total output value of China’s geographic information industry will reach 752.4 billion yuan in 2021, which has become a new growth pole of China’s digital economy.
This year, the Ministry of Natural Resources will focus on overall development and safety, and continuously enhance the ability of surveying and mapping geographic information data acquisition and service support; Comprehensively carry out the construction of real-life three-dimensional China and smart city spatio-temporal big data platform to provide a unified spatio-temporal data base for digital China and digital economy; Promote the transformation of data resources into data assets, and give full play to the important value of spatio-temporal data as a new production factor.
Key words for next year’s work: stimulating vitality and releasing potential
For next year’s work, Wang Guanghua wrote eight words to stimulate vitality and release potential.
Wang Guanghua said that China’s economy is strong in resilience, great in potential and full of vitality, and its long-term positive fundamentals have not changed. After the state optimizes and adjusts the epidemic prevention and control policies, social production and life will be accelerated, the vitality of the market will be further stimulated, and the potential of economic growth will be fully released. We will continue to optimize the protection of natural resources, strengthen national food and energy security, further promote the green transformation of economic and social development, and promote the overall recovery of economic operation.
(CCTV reporter Zhang Qin Wang Wei Cui Xia Tan Zhenhua Yu Di Jaco Zhang Hao Liu Shijun Li Ziguo Shao Chen Fei Wentao Yin Lisha Sun Xiran)
