3.1.4. Land-use efficiency obtained by market prices or not
Land-use legislation in China distinguishes between transferable
“land-use rights” and inalienable “land ownership”.
According to the land-use legislation, two types of land ownership
exist: “collective ownership” and “state ownership”. As
in the land leasehold system in HongKong, industrial enterprises
can buy state-owned land-use rights from the municipal government
for a fixed period, although this was banned before China’s
first land law – The Land Administrative Law (LAL) – in 1986,
as was the sale of collectively owned land. The price of land-use
rights depends on land-use type, location, land-use density, and
neighborhood externalities, and resembles land price determination
inWestern countries. Land policy reform in China has had a
remarkably positive impact on land-use efficiency improvement
(Qu et al., 1995).