China issues land right certificates to farmers

China will expand pilot areas for granting certificates for the contracted land to farmers next year, an official said Wednesday.

The move is a fundamental work for ensuring farmers' land rights. It will promote future land use transfers, said Minister of Agriculture Han Changfu at a national meeting on agriculture.

Han said that two provinces will begin experiments in all areas next year, while other provincial-level regions should choose at least one county for the program.

"On the basis of the experiments, we will strive to roll out the program to the whole country in 2015 and basically complete the reform in five years," Han said.

China has started the pilot program in 2008. The program expanded to 50 counties by 2012 and to 100 more this year.