Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, called for enhanced efforts to advance the national land and space planning to a higher level on Thursday.

Han made the remarks at a national workshop for provincial- and ministerial-level officials, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Friday. The work of national land and space planning must be promoted in a scientific way and put the people first, said Han. The intensity of exploration must be strictly controlled while the quality of the planning should be improved, according to Han.

Han emphasized that major tasks and key procedures should be focused on building a national land and space planning system with environmental protection strictly implemented. Meanwhile, efforts should be made to optimize related laws and mechanisms and strengthen supervision, he said.

Han also said to integrate space planning, such as main functional area planning, land use planning, and urban and rural planning into national land and space planning as soon as possible. Han noted that it is necessary to delimit and implement the ecological protection red line, permanent basic farmland, and urban development boundary. China's central government set a red line that China's total arable land shall be no less than 1.8 billion mu (120 million hectares), according to the "No. 1 central document" released on February 19, 2019.

China's cabinet has also approved plans by 15 provincial-level regions to draw ecological "red lines," which having a combined area of 610,000 square kilometers, to strengthen environmental protection on February 12, 2018.

Source: Global Times