Hanoi was well on track to fulfilling its target of land use right auction income for 2010 although some problems still remained unresolved, said a high-ranking city official.

Nguyen Trong Dong, Deputy Director of Hanoi's Department of Natural Resources and Environment said so far, 18 units had conducted auctions for 11.7ha of land, raking in 2.5 trillion VND (125 million USD), accounting for 97 percent of the city's planned budget income.

In December, the city will conduct more auctions in an attempt to earn 80 billion VND (4 million USD) more to fulfil the plan for the year. Land in Thon Bon village, Ngo Thi Nham area, Dong Dung area in Ha Dong district and Trau Quy commune in Gia Lam district will be up for auction and is expected to bring in 370 billion VND (18.5 million USD) for the city.

Dong said, however, there were still many problems which needed to be addressed.

Among them were the slow pace of land clearance and infrastructure construction, and the lengthy task of preparing necessary documents.

In a recent meeting between city leaders and district officials on this issue, many officials at district level said they were unsure about how to implement Decree 17/2010/ND-CP on land auctions as the Government had not issued guidelines.

Under the decree, local authorities need to invite auctioneers from the city to attend the auctions in a supervisory role. But many district officials said this was both unnecessary and ineffective.

Tran Duc Nguyen, deputy chairman of Thach That district People's Committee said his district were unable to hold auctions due to this stipulation.

The district officials also pointed to bid rigging as a major problem.

Many land rights owners deliberately made high bids for adjoining land to increase the value of their own, but then refused to pay after the auction finished, said local officials.

An official of Quoc Oai district suggested that the city should raise the deposit for land auctions in order to tackle this problem.

Vu Hong Khanh, deputy chairman of the city People's Committee said city authorities would hold discussions with other related ministries to work out feasible solutions to the remaining problems.

Khanh said that auction winners who failed to pay would have their land use rights revoked within 30 days.

He added auction boards and relevant authorities should closely cooperate to organise sales and strictly punish any violations./.