The Ministry of Natural Resources ("MNR") has recently issued the Circular on Carrying out the 2018 National Land Alteration Survey and Remote-sensing Monitoring (the "Circular").
The Circular states that, efforts will be made to gain a comprehensive understanding of changes arising in 2018 to land utilization across all 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government) of the country, constantly update findings of national land surveys, support the formation of a "sole map" of natural resources and the stable operation of the integrated regulation platform, consolidate foundations for the map-based land administration, and accelerate the modernization of the country's governance systems and governance capacity. Further, the Circular calls for efforts in four aspects to have strict control over alterations proposed to land of importance. The first is about changes to construction land and other relevant land; the second deals with changes to newly-defined arable land and to land plot types within the arable land; the third is about shifting the status of farming land into unused land; and the fourth deals with the linkage with the third national land survey. Furthermore, the Circular makes clear the schedule of relevant work, adding that statistics collected during the 2018 national land alteration survey will be applied as of July 1, 2019.