VietNamNet Bridge – Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Nguyen Minh Quang has instructed localities to keep land-use fees as low possible and speed up the processing of land-use rights certificate.

Speaking on the VTV programme “People ask, Minister answers”, Minister Quang said many people in Ho Chi Minh City had turned down certificates (also known as the “red book”) because of high land-use fees.

Following Decree 93 of the Ministry of Finance, the People’s Committee of each locality was allowed to decide on land use fees for people who applied for certificates of land-use rights.

Recently, many people in HCM City complained that fees were too high, forcing them to avoid getting the certificates, the Minister said.

Localities should adopt the Finance Ministry’s regulation flexibly, he said.

Regarding people’s concerns over the policy to allow people to owe land-use fees, he said Government Decree 120 regulated that accumulated land-use fee debts would be payable after five years at the rate set at the time of granting land-use rights certificates.

From the sixth year any unpaid fee would be calculated at the new rate, the minister said.

Local authorities were responsible for informing residents of the policy.

Relating to the granting of land-use rights certificates, the Minister said authorities of 23 provinces and cities who were behind in the process would have to speed up the task.

It was essential to publicise results of certificate applications during the first half of the year and those localities that had yet to complete the task should to it before the end of the second six months.

The Government last year earmarked around 1 trillion VND (47 million USD) to help speed up the process of issuing land-use rights certificates for 42 localities.

The ministry has proposed the Government and the National Assembly allocate money to support the issuance of certificates this year, particularly in midland and mountainous areas.

Source: Vietnam Plus