China cuts development zones by 70 precent in 2004, official

China trimmed the number of development zones by 70 percent and reduced the scale of land meant for these zones by 65 percent in a nationwide drive to rectify the land market, said Vice Minister Li Yuan of Land and Resources Monday.

The central government also cleared up 17.5 billion yuan (2 billion US dollars) of defaulted payment to farmers for their land acquisition and took over 12.3 billion yuan (some 1.5 billion yuan) from local governments that should have paid for land acquisition for construction use, Li said at a press conference.