Land Administration Reform in Vietnam

Prof. Dr Sc. Dang Hung Vo

Deputy Director General

General Department of Land Administration

Vietnam

Introduction

The first cadastral system in Vietnam was established by the Le dynasty in 1490. It is a DEED system in service for the nationwide land administration focusing on the utmost collection of agricultural tax. Meanwhile Hong Duc Law, the first Vietnamese law, was promulgated, of which 60 articles were about the land. The second cadastral system established in Vietnam took 31 years between 1805 and 1836 by the Nguyen dynasty. It is a DEED system also containing 10,044 volumes of land record that covered 18 thousand communes across the country. Meanwhile Gia Long Law, the second Vietnamese law, was promulgated, of which 14 articles were to regulate the civil and administrative relation on housing, land and rice tax. On their first arrival to Vietnam in the mid-19^th century, the French, without any delay, started making cadastral maps with coordinates and setting up new land records so as to strengthen their agricultural tax collection in rural areas and further control markets of real property in urban areas. It is the third cadastral system established in Vietnam. The DEED system was applied for rural land whereas the TITLE system was applied for urban land.

Soon after the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (former name of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam) was founded, Vietnam went over wars for 30 years between 1945 and 1975. Land administration was ignored in the following 1975 - 1986 period because of the centralised planning economic model.

In 1986 the State of Vietnam decided to innovate its economic system under the maket economy model managed by the State. Since then, land administration has been regarded significant to secure polittical stability, social justice and economic development. The Vietnamese land law was first approved by the National Assembly in 1988. After having been carried out for 5 years, some articles proved to be not encouraging enough for economic development that the National Assemble had to approve a revisional land law in 1993, called the 1993 Land Law. In early 1994 a nationwide four-level system of land administration was established as the General Department of Land Administration (GDLA) at the central level belonging to the Government, Provincial Department of Land Administration (PDLA) at provincial level belonging to People’s Committee of Province, District Bureau of Land Administration (DBLA) at district level belonging to People’s Committee of District, and one Land Officer in each commune. Land administration bodies are reponsible to the State for land adminstration and survey - mapping. Its tasks are as follows:

Preparation of land legislation and land policies to submit to Authorized Government for aproval.

cadastral system including cadastral mapping, land register, land record and land tenure certificate issuance.

Land investigation and inventory for land classification, land assessment, land valuation.

Land statistics and current land use mapping.

Long term land use planning and annual land use plan.

Land inspection.

Solving land disputes.

Basic surveying and mapping such as reference system definition, coordinates and levelling control network.

Aerial photography and topographic mapping covering whole country.

Hydrographic survey and sea bed topo-mapping.

Issues related to contruction of land administration system in Vietnam are respectively introduced in this part.

STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT OF LAND ADMINISTRATION AREA IN VIETNAM

The land administration area in Vietnam has started setting up the 4^th cadastral system since 1994 (the 3 former attempts have already been referred to in the above introduction). Below is the development targets of land administration in Vietnam:

Complete the land legislation and land policy system based on political stability, social justice and economic development; effectively strengthen to the land inspection system; well settle land disputes. Land is the property of the entire people. It is allocated or leased by the State to organizations, households or individuals for long-term use. Depending on their status, land users are fully or partly granted the rights of land exchange, transfer, inheritance, mortgage, lease, investment into joint-venture. Rural land is used for cultivation, development of the rural socio-economy, food security, so that the necessary land of afforestation must be secured and the ecological environment must be protected. Besides, the State appropriately provides land for the national industrialization and modernization, including the construction of infrastructure, centralized industrial zones and urbanization in dealing with resettlement.

 

Basically accomplish the establishment of initial cadastal documents consisting of cadastral maps, land register books and the land tenure certificates (LTCs) for 19 million ha of currently used land. Initial cadastral documents in Vietnam started in 1990 was subject to the title system, LTCs issued to land users on the basis of cadastral maps set up according to the national unified system of coordinates. Threre are around 13 million present land users, of whom 10.5 million in rural areas and 2.5 million in urban areas, taking about 100 million land parcels in Vietnam. LTCs will be issued until the year 2000, by then the land accumulation will reduce the number of parcels and the LTC will step-by-step be replaced by the ones based on parcels. It is impossible to complete all the new cadastral maps by the year 2000 so all the old ones remain suitable for the present situation. Initial registration of land for 13 million land users is considered as such a huge task to tackle.

Carry out land investigation, land survey, land classification, land assessment and land valuation. This is a new task of land administration system in Vietnam which gradually functions the markets of real estate, correctly defines the state revenue made from land resources.

Set up the long-term land use planning and the short-term land use plan. Persuant to the Vietnamese land law, the National Assembly approve the long-term land use planning once it is suitable for the nationwide planning of socio-economic development. The government will annually approve Land use plans submitted by provinces or by economic sectors in order to firmly grasp of all occurences in the land use process.

Construct favorable conditions to secure the land allocation, land lease and land recovery. It is essential that land location, land lease and land recovery must be in conformity with the yearly land use plan. The administrative procedures of managerial system must be streamlined over the transferring process of land use. The fluctuation of land use should be timely updated by the land information system.

Gradually modernize the land information system oriented to information technology. Land administration bodies are responsible for supplying the land information such as land statistics, current land use maps, land use planning, etc. and the information related to the natural, economic, social and legal conditions on each land parcel to meet the civil needs. By 2000 the computer network for land administration will be connected from the GDLA to every Provincial Department of Land Administration (PDLA). The database will be a form of decentralized database. It is estimated that up to 600 District Bureaux of Land Administration (DBLA) will be connected to the computer network by 2010.

LAND RESOURCES IN VIETNAM

The total land acreage in Vietnam is around 33,104,218 ha, regarded as a medium one, ranking 60^th among 160 countries in the world and 4^th among 10 South-East Asian countries. Vietnamese population is about 73.5 million, regarded as an overpopulated one, ranking 13^rd in the world and 2^nd in the South-Eastern Asia. The land area per capita in Vietnam is 0.45 ha, regarded as a little one, ranking 135^th in the world and 9^th in the South-Eastern Asia. There are about 13 million housholds all over the country, of which 10.5 million in rural areas and 2.5 million in urban areas.

According to the 1993 Land Law, 6 categories of land were identified as follows: agricultural land, forestry land, rural residential land, urban land, land for specialized use, unused land. Land area of each category is listed against 7 geographically economic zones in the table 1.

Table 1: Current Land Use of Vietnam 1994 (Unit of Area: Ha)

Fluctuation of land use plays an important role in the process of land administration. Below is Table 2 with the 1980 - 1994 statistics of land fluctuation:

Land for growing rice considerably decreased between 1980 - 1990, then increased between 1990 - 1994, by 1994 its acreage was almost equivalent with 1985’s.

Natural forest land dramatically dropped between 1980 - 1990 because of land reclamation hoping to expand unproductively farming land that caused deforestation subsequently. In the meantime the increase in afforestation acreage is not so large as that in deforestation acreage. Land acreage of both natural forest and reforestation rose between 1990 - 1994, but the total forest area was much lower than it had been in 1980.

Land for specialized use tended to rise steadily according the tempo of national economic development whereas land for construction dropped dramatically between 1980 - 1990.

Organization mechanism and manpower of land administration

Each PDLA at provincial level normally has 2 sectors, including 5 bureaux for office, planning, land registration, survey & mapping, land inspection, and 2 centers for survey & mapping, land information.

Each DBLA at district level normally has only 5 land officers responsible for different tasks.

Each commune has one land officer.

The total workforce of land administration area are listed in the following table:

Table 3: Total workforce of land administration

The total workforce of land administration area is 17,350 people, of whom 66% at primary educational level, 21% at secondary level (technician), and only 13% at academic training level. Therefore, retraining needs to be put forward as a very pressing matter.

cadastral mapping

A basic cadastral control network covering all over the country has been constructed by GPS technology with single frequency receivers. About 20,000 points are needed nationwide, of which 3,500 have been completed and the other 16,500 remaining points are expected to be done by 2000.

The total area that needs cadastral maps consists of 11,300 ha at the scale 1/200, 195,200 ha at 1/500, 1,130,000 ha at 1/1,000, 4,021,000 ha at 1/2,000, 3,471,000 ha at 1/5,000, 10,795,000 ha at 1/10,000. Cadastral maps at 1/10,000 are used for registeration of forested land. Now we can use the topographic maps at the same scale and small-sized GPS receivers as GeoExplorers manufactured by TRIMBLE for definition of forest boundaries. Cadastral maps at 1/200, 1/500 and 1/1,000 are made for residential areas by Total Stations and cadastral mapping softwares with digital form. Cadastral maps at 1/1,000 and 1/2,000 for agricultural land are made by different photogrametric technologies, such as orhtophotomap on Intergraph Image Station, analitical stereoplotting or rectified aerial photos. In Vietnam, old cadastral maps suitable for current land use situation can be used on 50% total area; new cadastral maps have been being completed on 16% total area, of which 3% is of digital form. From now to 2000, it will be necessary to complete cadastral maps for at least 34% of the land area where there has never been any cadastral maps before. The whole system of digital cadastral map will be completed after 2000.

land register and of land tenure certificates (LTCs) issuance

Land register and issuance of LTCs for urban land are having more difficulties. Up to now there are only 3% of urban land users having finished their land register and LTCs issuance procedures. Difficulties in the issuance of LTCs for urban land are caused by 2 reasons: Firstly, there are frequent land disputes because of land use with high value; secondly, it is very difficult for land administration bodies to jointly work with contruction bodies and financial bodies to complete the land register procedures. GDLA will concentrate on their guidance in Hanoi and HCMC between 1996 - 2000 to settle these matters.

The land legislation system and land policy

During 3 years after the 1993 Land Law was promulgated, over 10,000 bouts of inspection were carried out and over 40,000 breaking cases of land law were discovered in provinces and cities, which practically indicated that the work of land management was still being relaxed and the land law was not regularly publicized by local authorities.

Land disputes are a constantly complicated phenomenon occurring through the establishment process of initial land records. Around 10,000 complaints have been lodged against land disputes since 1993. Land disputes were settled by the land administration bodies when land users did not have the LTCs, and by the courts of law when land users already had the LTCs.

Setting up long term land use planning and annual land use plans

It is extremely difficult for land administration area, relevant economic sectors as well as local authorities to set up long term land use planning and annual land use plans in the condition that initial land records have not yet been established. However, a nationwide long term land use planning up to 2010 as well as a plan of shifting agricultural land and forested land to other purpose of land use have been set up by the GDLA, and already been submitted to the Government. After being examined by the Government, these documents will be respectively submitted to the National Assembly or the NA Standing Committee for approval. Annual land use plans for every province and economic sector are approved by the Government.

FINANCING Source for land administration ACTIVITIES

Apart from the source of domestic investment, GDLA also receives non-refundable foreign investments from the ODA. It is noticeable that a total of USD 10 million will be funded by Swedish SIDA for implementation of the Vietnam - Sweden Cooperation Program on Land Administration Reform (CPLAR) between 1997 - 2000. Major contents of this program include methodological studies, technological transfer and human resources development for land administration area in Vietnam.

Science-Technology Solutions

Data Management technology

Most cadastral records are now developed by conventional technology, i.e. by means of paper books and paper maps. Modernization of land management technology, that is based on information technology for cadastral mapping, land register, land record, LTC issuance, is going through a period of infrastructural construction to gradually put it into practice.

Vietnam Government are having 2 great programs on information technology, one is to build the information high way, the other is to build the national database. National database includes 6 sub-databases for legislation, administration, population, socio-economy, finance-banking, land-geography. GDLA is responsible for building the land-geographical database.

Windows NT has been adopted as the selected operating system. MicroStation has been as the selected graphical environment. SQL-Server has been adopted as the selected database management system.

Data capture technology

Development of whole technology is orientated towards digitalization and automation in data capture. At present, only digital instruments are allowed by GDLA to develop, such as total stations and GPS for ground survey, digital and analitical stereoplotter for spatial-aerial photos processing, land register on database managemant softwares.

Data processing technology

Data processing technology is a process of analysing and generalizing information that issues rational land use planning, right decisions on land allocation / lease / recovery, solutions to revision of land law and policy, settle land routines and territorial problems, supply necessary information to meet the economic - cultural - social needs. So far data processing in land administration area has been following conventional procedures, managerial decisions made basing on practical experiences and some inadequate data.

Establishment of land information system that is like a general information system including cadastral maps, land records and base geographic data, a nationwide unified database, has been gradually extended by GDLA. The present step is now to test and study the feasibility of the system along with building the information infrastructure.

human resources development

Graduated training and postgraduated training for the land administration area are concentrated in the Land Management Faculty of Agriculture College No.1 (Hanoi) and the Geodesy & Cartography & Cadastre Faculty of Mining & Geological College of Hanoi. Academic land officers are also trained, but not frequently, from the Ho Chi Minh City Polytechnics and the Can Tho Agriculture College.

GDLA pays great attention to retraining and refresher training for on-job officers, especially focusing on improvement of English language, information technology and management. Courses of English and information technology have been organized right on the spot at GDLA. Besides, GDLA also sends a number of its officers to study at some administrative management schools.

Relying on the funds granted by some international projects as well as the foreign scholarships, GDLA already sent a number of its qualified officers to study in such foreign countries as Holland, Taiwan, Sweden, etc. Another model being adopted by GDLA is to invite experts from foreign countries to come over and exchange technologies with Vietnam scientists and management officers. This model will enable our scientists and officers to have access to internationally and regionally technological standards of land management as well as survey - mapping.

Refresher training and retraining for local land officers have also been carried out at the 3 vocational schools of land administration with on-job courses and concentrated courses held in some certain provinces. This way helps us to timely satisfy the demand of raising all communal land officers up to the level of technician before 2000.

CONCLUSion

Vietnam’s land administration area has the task to adequately meet the needs of land so as to accomplish the national industrialization and modernization. In the meantime, issues of land related to social justice, food security, environmental protection, political stability must be well solved. In the 1996 - 2000 period the land title system based on any kind of cadastral maps shall be completed by the land administration area. In the 2001 - 2010 new cadastral maps shall be made on the areas, where old maps have been used, so as to complete a system of digital cadastral maps. By 2010 a nationwide system of land information shall be completed on the basis of computer networks connecting between the GDLA and bureaux of land administration at district level.