The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment announced new regulations on August 20 on land usage, land price determination, revoking of land use rights, compensation and support for resettlement.

These regulations, stated in the Government’s Decree No 69/2009/ND-CP, will come into effect as of October 1 this year.

Under the decree, for the first time, provincial people’s committees will be allowed to set aside between 30-50 percent of State collections from land usage and land leasing to establish land development funds.

These funds will be used to supply capital for projects such as building houses for resettlement land clearance serving socio-economic development, giving compensation to displaced people and to organize vocational training courses.

Each farmer, from whom the State takes back 30 to 70 percent of their land, will be given financial support equivalent to 30kg rice per month.

The duration of the support depends on whether they have to move to another place to live or not.

Household businesses or companies, who must stop operations because of losing land to the Government, will receive an amount of money equivalent to a maximum 30 percent of their average after-tax income for the prior three years.

In some specific cases, households and individuals doing agricultural production will be given an amount of money equivalent to 1.5 – 5 times the price of the lot of land lost, and those of working age will be admitted to vocational training courses for free./.