At the recent NA’s Q&A session with Minister and Head of the Committee for Ethnic Affairs Hau A Lenh, NA deputies reported the shortage of residential and productive land in the ethnic minority region.
Statistics show that by 2019, more than 24,000 ethnic minority households were in need of residential land and more than 43,000 were in need of productive land.
Settling land-related problems for ethnic minority people
The 5th Plenum of the current Party Central Committee adopted Resolution 18 on continuing to reform and fine-tune institutions and policies, improving the efficiency and effectiveness of land management and land use. The intention is to create momentum for Vietnam to become a developed, high-income country and sets the goal of fundamentally settling inadequacies and obstacles concerning residential and profitable land for ethnic minority people.
To realize this goal, Party Politburo member and Head of the Party Central Committee’s Organization Commission Truong Thi Mai asked ministries, sectors and organizations to pay more attention to the material and spiritual life of the people, especially ethnic minority people.
"Without good land policies, people’s lives will continue to be disadvantageous. The revisions of the Land Law should focus more on the residential and productive land issues of ethnic minority people. Once we can ensure the living conditions of the people, then social security will be ensured and poverty reduced sustainably," said Ms. Mai.
After 2 rounds of discussions at the National Assembly and collecting people's opinions, the draft revised Land Law aims to ensure land for community activities as well as policies on land allocation, land rent, and productive land for poor ethnic minority people in disadvantaged areas.
The draft revised law clearly stipulates the first-time allocation and lease of land for ethnic minorities who have no land or who lack agricultural land. It also specifically stipulates prohibited acts in land allocation and land lease for ethnic minorities.
Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Le Minh Ngan said: "First, organizations and competent state agencies must ensure that land is allocated to the right beneficiaries. Second, it is strictly forbidden for the person whose land is allocated to lease the land for the second time or continue to transfer it. Third, it is strictly forbidden for non-ethnic minorities to receive land which is supposed to be limited to ethnic minority people."
In alignment of conditions, customs, cultural identity of ethnic minority people
The draft revised Land Law also amends regulations on conditional exercise of land use rights. Accordingly, ethnic minorities have the right to donate their land to their heirs, transfer the land use right to the allocated land to their family members, to lease the land, but not transfer, use the land as their capital contribution or donate the land use right.
The revisions are being made based on the conditions, customs, and cultural identity of ethnic minority groups and are aimed at creating conditions for ethnic minority people to access land for agricultural production.
Ma Thi Thuy, a NA deputy of Tuyen Quang province, proposes including near-poor people in ethnic minority regions in the groups whose are ensured to have residential land.
"We propose to add poor and near poor people because those people account for a large number and have similar difficulties. We also need to identify especially difficult areas where a large number of ethnic minority people are poor. We hope that the regulations will be revised to cover more poor and near poor people in ethnic minority areas," said Thuy.
NA deputies agreed that more specific stipulations on ensuring land for community activities as well as policies on land allocation, land rent, and productive land for poor ethnic minority people in disadvantaged areas will help people address the shortage of residential and productive land and help improve the living conditions and ensure the sustainable development of ethnic minority regions.