CCP gives nod to major economic reforms
Updated
China's Communist Party has approved a major economic reform plan that will allow farmers to trade and mortgage their land rights.
It was approved at an annual meeting in Beijing, chaired by President Hu Jintao, of up to 500 members of the party's central and disciplinary committees and other key officials.
Most of China's farm plots are small and held individually, at a time when hundreds of millions of farmers are leaving the land to seek better lives in the nation's quickly developing urban centres.
According to China's constitution all land is owned by the state and the reforms are not expected to result in private ownership of land.
Although farmers have been leasing their land rights for years in many places, the party communique clearly acknowledged that many rural dwellers have been left behind in China's economic boom.
The move is part of a wider package of reforms aimed at reducing a gaping rural-urban income gap that has expanded during 30 years of capitalist market policies.
