Interview: Minister of Natural Resources on unleashing China's development vitality

BEIJING -- Minister of Natural Resources Wang Guanghua has listed a number of priority tasks for the country to further enhance resource utilization efficiency and unleash development vitality.

In an interview with Xinhua, Wang emphasized the need to facilitate the legislation of farmland protection this year, as the country has set the goal of keeping its farmland acreage at about 124 million hectares from 2021 to 2035.

He said that achieving the goal entails strict oversight of government officials' performance in farmland protection. Measures like one-vote veto and lifelong accountability will be adopted for major problems in this regard.

In terms of coping with the uncertainties in the international energy market, Wang acknowledged the country's high dependence on some imported mineral resources and the necessity to take precautions to ensure energy security.

"We will launch a new round of domestic prospecting operation, focusing on strategic bulk minerals and minerals that are in short supply," he said.

The country will implement projects to strengthen strategic reserves in mineral areas and enhance the ability to ensure the long-term security of strategic mineral resources, while incentives will be further optimized to encourage private capital to participate in exploration and prospecting, he noted.

Wang said developing a new type of energy system is a strategic choice of the country to promote the transformation toward green and low-carbon development and to achieve carbon peaking and neutrality goals.

"We will formulate policies to facilitate the use of unused land such as the Gobi desert and wastelands for large-scale photovoltaic power generation, and promote the healthy and orderly development of the offshore photovoltaic industry," Wang said.

On boosting green development, the minister stressed the need to comprehensively improve the efficiency of resource utilization and improve the mechanism for paid use of natural resources.

In terms of land use, the country will put existing land for construction to better use, expand the pilots to redevelop the inefficiently used land in cities and townships, and make better use of all types of non-construction land in villages.

In addition, a number of new national parks will be gradually established while large-scale afforestation and major biodiversity conservation projects will be advanced.

Wang said the country will further exploit the role of forests, grasslands, wetlands, oceans, soil, and frozen soil in carbon sequestration, improve ecological protection compensation mechanisms that reflect the value of carbon sinks, and explore ways to promote carbon sink trading.

To shore up the digital economy, the country will activate the use of geographic information data as a new type of production factor.

Wang said the ministry's key task in this regard is to enrich relevant data supply to catalyze the development of modern logistics, sharing economy, smart travel, and other new types of business.

Meanwhile, data property right protection will be strengthened through measures such as putting surveying and mapping geographic information data to classified management and ensuring their lawful circulation.

In terms of application security, Wang said the ministry will speed up the reliable distribution, controlled use, and process traceability of confidential surveying and mapping results, and geographic information data.