Collecting data on land is still difficult even in large cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Illustrative photo, source – Int
Prime Minister’s report in March 2024
The responsible ministries implementing the task are the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Information and Communications, Public Security, Planning and Investment, Finance, according to the Government’s resolution of the meeting on February 6.
The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and the Ministry of Finance summarize the recommendations of localities on regulating 10% of land revenue for the purpose of managing and digitizing land database. The two ministries proposed plans and reports to the Prime Minister in March.
The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment will soon build and submit to the authorized level the documents instructing the implementation of the Land Law 2024, with the spirit of “No legal loopholes”.
The national land database includes many data components such as synthesis of geographical, spatial, land parcel, data tables; current use status of land at national, regional, provincial levels; national, regional, provincial land use planning; land price framework, land border price, land price table; basic land survey data such as quality, potential, degradation, land pollution…
The land parcel data will include land type, land use area, sheet number, parcel number, users, legal status, real estate attached to land…
Since April 2021, the Prime Minister has assigned the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Construction and related agencies to study and build the national land database.
Explaining to the National Assembly in November 2022, Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha (in his capacity as Minister of Natural Resources and Environment) said that based on the complete land price database, agencies would synthesize and calculate to determine land areas, standardized parcels and number of parcels… thereby determining land prices. People can access the land prices through the database or digital maps to approach the market prices. “When we have built a land price database, everyone can know and no one can interfere because it is the market price,” Ha said.
In February 2023, reviewing opinions on the draft Amended Land Law, Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha reiterated the idea that agencies would collect and update land transaction data under stable normal conditions, heading towards building a nationwide land price database and map. This aims to overcome difficulties in land valuation according to market prices, creating a basis for implementing financial obligations related to land, compensations, reimbursements, and resettlement.
Many difficulties still need to be resolved
In reality, synchronized and digitized land data will bring many benefits, enhance management effectiveness, and shorten administrative procedures… However, in many other localities across the country, the construction of land databases still faces difficulties.
In Hanoi, according to the Department of Natural Resources and Environment of Hanoi, the city is currently focusing on implementing a comprehensive project to build a geographical file and land database. From 2015 to now, basic survey work has been carried out at 27 out of 27 locations under the project scope, completing the surveying work of topographical maps and organizing the acceptance tests of 477 out of 489 communes and towns; 11 remaining wards and communes have conducted the topographical survey. In September 2023, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment carried out the procedures to request an extension of the project implementation deadline from the city People’s Committee.
According to Vo Anh Tuan, Deputy Director of the Department of Registration and Land Information Data (Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment), localities have realized and understood the importance of building land databases as a fundamental tool to serve land management work. Some localities have built land databases throughout the province and city to manage land in a modern direction and have built a large amount of input data to serve the construction of databases, including map systems (graphic data) and land registration files, real estate attached to land (attribute data)…
However, according to Nguyen Bao Trung, Deputy Director of the Digital Conversion and Resource and Environmental Data Information Center (Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment), during the implementation process, there are still difficulties and obstacles. Specifically, regarding land data, the information, land database in operation at the locality is not consistent with the official cadastral map; land plot addresses (information on the certificate) are not detailed enough (only information about the ward/village, hamlet without information about house number) and have changed a lot compared to reality, so the process of reviewing and reconciling information takes a lot of time, and in reality, it is necessary to re-investigate the entire administrative area.
Regarding information and data on houses, buildings, property attached to land, this is not a mandatory registration information, so it is almost absent in the land database. Information about houses in the construction permit issued to individuals and organizations under the management of the Department of Construction, district-level People’s Committees is stored in paper records and has not been digitized for connection, sharing and supplementing the land database.
In addition, in reality, information collection on house numbers and street names is still duplicated and not uniform; especially in new areas, new streets, unofficial streets, the addresses are self-assigned and self-numbered, resulting in unofficial, inaccurate, chaotic, and duplicated house number and address information…
Regarding the organization of implementation, Mr. Trung said that the investigation of information collection in localities is coordinated and assigned to communes and wards to implement. Although there has been strong involvement from the government at all levels of provinces, districts, and communes; team leaders, party committees directly distributed questionnaires and urged the collection of information, but the results depend on the level of cooperation of the people, the ability of the investigating officers, so the amount of information collected is still low (about 50% – 70%) of the total, and the reliability is still not high; information about houses, property attached to land, detailed addresses is still low. For example, in Hanoi, Tran Phu ward and Hoang Mai district respectively achieved the corresponding rates of 0.29% and 22.24%.
In particular, the process of collecting information from each households still faces many difficulties, with cases where it cannot be collected because the land users, property owners are not present in the area or have transferred the land use rights to other local residents or have rented the land or do not cooperate with the locality to declare and provide information.
In addition, according to Mr. Trung, people have not been spontaneous and proactive in registering land, houses, properties attached to land (including initial registration and changes in registration) according to regulations, so the data is not frequently updated, complete, accurate according to actual use and management status.
