蔡继明
清华大学社会科学学院教授、博士生导师、政治经济学研究中心主任。美国哈佛大学肯尼迪学院富布赖特访问学者，享受国务院政府特殊津贴。现任第十四届全国人大财经委员会委员，“十四五”和“十五五”国家发展规划专家委员会委员、国家新型城镇化规划专家咨询委员会委员，最高人民法院特邀咨询员，最高人民检察院特约监督员。
蔡继明代表：扩大宅基地使用权流转范围 建立农民增收长效机制
来源：中国经济网
作者：中国经济网记者 邓浩 马常艳
“拓展农村宅基地使用权流转的范围，对于建立农民持续增收的长效机制至关重要。”全国人大代表、清华大学政治经济学研究中心主任蔡继明近日在接受中国经济网记者专访时指出，农村宅基地制度改革的核心问题在于实现与城市国有土地的同等权利。
作为第九、十、十一届全国政协委员，以及第十二、十三、十四届全国人大代表，土地制度改革是蔡继明近30年来最为关注的议题。他因此被媒体誉为“土地委员”和“土地代表”。在今年的全国人大会议上，蔡继明提交了两份与土地改革相关的建议，旨在深化土地制度改革以提升土地要素对经济增长的贡献率，并扩大农村宅基地使用权的流转范围。他强调：“必须让市场在城乡土地资源配置中发挥决定性作用。”
01 大量农村宅基地亟待有效利用
土地作为最重要的生产要素之一，其在城乡之间的配置效率和利益分配问题，直接关联到新型城镇化和乡村振兴的发展质量。长期困扰我国的“三农”问题，根本上是由农村“人地矛盾”所引发的，即农村户均土地经营规模过小，这导致了农业劳动生产率相对较低。蔡继明指出，要解决这一问题，必须走城乡融合发展之路，加速农村剩余劳动力向非农产业转移，并推动农业转移人口市民化，从而实现农村户均土地的规模经营。
蔡继明所提及的农村户均土地，主要指的是耕地等农业用地。除此之外，农村土地还包括集体建设用地，而集体建设用地又由宅基地、公益性公共设施用地和经营性用地构成。数据显示，我国目前农村常住人口占全国总人口的33%，而农村集体建设用地面积是城镇建设用地的两倍以上，达到19万平方公里，其中农村集体经营性建设用地仅占14%，且大部分已在使用中，农村宅基地占比超过70%，相当一部分处于闲置和低效利用状态。
蔡继明认为，大量农村宅基地未能得到有效利用的原因在于，目前我国宅基地的使用权仅限于农村集体经济组织内部流转，这使得巨量的宅基地被排除在城乡统一的建设用地市场之外。“若要使农村宅基地成为农民获取财产收益和抵押融资的重要渠道，必须改变当前城乡土地产权不平等和土地资源配置行政化的现状。”
02 同步推进城乡土地产权同权化和资源配置市场化改革
蔡继明建议，应同时推进城乡土地产权同权化和资源配置市场化改革。一方面，需赋予农村集体土地与城市国有土地同等的权利，例如允许集体土地所有权人设立建设用地使用权，赋予农村住宅建设用地用益物权和担保物权，以及在集体所有的土地上推进城中村的改造等。另一方面，市场应在土地资源配置中发挥决定性作用，包括取消对特超大城市人口规模的限制，放宽农地入市的限制，取消自然资源部每年下达的全国城乡建设用地“增减挂钩”周转指标，以及取消对农村建设用地的用途管制等。
蔡继明指出，深化土地制度改革将有助于提升土地要素对经济增长的贡献率。据相关研究显示，这些土地资源优化配置的措施，对2035年之前每年经济增长的提升综合为1.40%至1.62%。
“在放宽农地入市限制方面，只要符合国土空间规划要求，都应允许农村土地直接入市，包括存量建设用地和列入规划的农业用地，特别是农村数千万亩闲置的宅基地。在城乡建设用地增减挂钩问题上，可以建立全国性增减挂钩市场，同时允许和鼓励增减挂钩指标在村际之间和省与省之间交易。在取消对农村建设用地的用途管制方面，只要严格禁止下乡利用农村宅基地建设别墅大院和私人会馆，农村大量闲置的宅基地就可以向城镇居民开放。”蔡继明强调。
03 扩大农村宅基地使用权流转范围
党的二十届三中全会《决定》对“完善城乡融合发展体制机制”作出重要部署，其中就深化农村宅基地制度改革提出了多方面要求，强调“允许农户合法拥有的住房通过出租、入股、合作等方式盘活利用”。蔡继明认为，《决定》中有关盘活利用农房的要求，是缩小城乡收入差距、促进共同富裕的必然选择，本质上是通过扩大宅基地使用权流转范围赋予农民更加充分的财产权益。
去年底召开的中央经济工作会议强调，“统筹推进新型城镇化和乡村全面振兴，促进城乡融合发展”。今年政府工作报告提出，“千方百计推动农业增效益、农村增活力、农民增收入”。在蔡继明看来，扩大宅基地使用权流转范围，正是联系新型城镇化和乡村全面振兴的重要纽带之一，也是促进城乡融合发展的关键抓手之一。
ADVANCING REFORM PRIORITIES:
Lawmakers focus on increasing rural residents' incomes
来源：《北京周报》（BEIJING REVIEW）2025年3月13日第11期
作者：《北京周报》记者 陶幸
The World Bank defines smallholder farmers as those who cultivate fewer than five acres (2.02 hectares) of land. However, according to data released by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs in 2021, approximately 210 million farming households in China each operate around 0.5 hectares of farmland. These extremely small landholdings per household contribute to low agricultural labor productivity and low incomes for farmers.
In recent years, this issue has been a priority for Cai Jiming, a professor of economics and social sciences at Tsinghua University and a member of the Financial and Economic Affairs Committee of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC), China's highest organ of state power.
Cai said urbanization is essential for addressing this issue. According to his calculations, for rural residents' incomes to reach the parity with those of urban workers, each rural household must operate farmland of at least 4.76 hectares. To achieve this, some rural residents will need to leave the land. "This requires a large-scale shift of surplus rural labor to non-farming industries and the urbanization of the rural population," Cai told Beijing Review.
Many rural residents have already migrated to cities and many more will in the future, leaving their rural houses and land unused. As a result, finding ways to generate income from these idle assets has become another focus of Cai's research.
01 A land issue
"We will protect the lawful land rights and interests of former rural residents who now hold permanent urban residency, protect, in accordance with the law, their rights to contract rural land, to use their rural residential land, and to share in the proceeds from rural collective undertakings, and explore avenues to facilitate voluntary, paid transfers of these rights," states the Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on Further Deepening Reform Comprehensively to Advance Chinese Modernization, which was adopted at the Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee in July 2024.
Rural households will be allowed to make use of houses under their legal ownership by leasing them out, contributing them in the form of shares, and engaging in cooperative ventures, according to the document. For instance, farmers' housing can be repurposed for leisure agriculture, rural tourism, cultural experience programs, makerspaces, e-commerce logistics facilities, and other emerging rural industries, rural economy experts say.
In China, rural residents own their own houses but not the land beneath them, which is owned collectively by the village they live in and allocated for use by each household. As a result, while houses can be mortgaged, used for commercial purposes and rented or sold to anyone, each share of homestead can only be traded or transferred to other residents of the village. "These restrictions prevent the formation of a viable market. Consequently, it is difficult to gauge the market value of rural housing," Cai said.
Cai's team has researched this issue for many years. Based on their findings, he proposed a solution at this year's NPC full session, held from March 5 to 11. He suggested expanding the scope of recipients eligible for rural homestead use rights transfers.
Currently, the income gap between urban and rural residents is narrowing. However, Cai said the per-capita income of urbanites is still 2.34 times that of rural residents, and their property incomes are as high as 10 times those of the latter.
Contributing to inequality is the slow pace of registering migrants in cities after they arrive from the countryside. Over 200 million migrant workers and their families, who are counted as permanent urban residents or those who have lived in urban areas for six months or longer, do not obtain permanent urban residency. As a result, they are unable to enjoy the same public services as urban residents in areas such as employment, education, housing, healthcare and social security. This also makes it more difficult for them to sever ties with their rural land, which contributes to the low per-household landholdings. Additionally, the wide gap in property incomes between urban and rural residents is mainly due to restrictions placed on rural residents' rights to use or mortgage their contracted land, which limit their access to property incomes.
On February 23, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, China's highest state administrative organ, jointly released their first policy statement of the year, dubbed the 2025 No.1 Central Document, outlining nine tasks to promote rural revitalization. It calls for exploring feasible ways to make good use of legally owned rural housing through methods such as leasing, investing in houses for commercial activities in exchange for a share of profit, and other forms of commercial cooperation. But it also states that urban residents are prohibited from purchasing rural houses or homesteads.
"However, urban residents are allowed to rent houses or lease land in rural areas to build houses," Cai said. "We also need to facilitate two-way flows of production factors between urban and rural areas, ultimately increasing rural residents' incomes and fostering integrated urban-rural development."
02 A wider concern
Chen Wangdi, Secretary of the CPC Branch of Ruxi Village in Foshan, Guangdong Province, and a deputy to the 14th NPC, also addressed rural development in her suggestions at this year's NPC full session, albeit from a different perspective.
This year, Chen focused on supporting new types of agribusiness to increase rural residents' incomes. "One of my suggestions is that governments at all levels support rural collectives in developing agribusinesses through targeted business projects," she told Beijing Review.
For instance, this could involve attracting enterprises to invest in rural business projects. However, the enterprise's role should go beyond merely taking full control or just paying land rent to village collectives and farmers. Instead, a collaborative model should be encouraged in which enterprises and rural residents jointly invest and share the returns.
The 2025 No.1 Central Document emphasizes the need to strengthen supportive policies for emerging agribusiness models to boost rural prosperity. Enterprises, rural cooperatives, family farms and rural households should be encouraged to collaborate more closely and rural residents should have a greater share of the profits of collaborative projects, it states.
"Nurturing and expanding new types of agribusiness while enhancing village collectives' capacity to implement collaborative models can drive income growth for both the collectives and rural residents," Chen concluded.
Cai also called for greater efforts in developing agricultural new quality productive forces featuring new economic models, new businesses and new industries. "Only industrialization can provide agriculture with advanced machinery and enable the shift of surplus rural labor to non-farming industries," he said.
China will support the development of smart agriculture and expand the application of technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and low-altitude technologies such as drones, according to the 2025 No.1 Central Document.
