Ministers Draw Up Land-Titling Document

The Council of Ministers Fri­day approved a draft document on land titling, the next step in im­plementing the land law passed last year, according to a statement from the council.

The document, prepared by the Ministry of Land Manage­ment, outlines procedures for en­forcing legal land titles, preventing and solving land disputes, pre­serving natural resources and achieving a more equitable distribution of land, according to the statement.

These strategies will go a long way toward reducing Cambodia’s constant land disputes and triggering development, Minister of Land Management Im Chhun Lim said on Sunday.

“Clear ownership [of land] re­duces land disputes so that people are not afraid to invest,” he said.

If people are not afraid of losing their land to seizure or competing claims, they are more likely to engage in productive, sustainable agriculture and build proper houses, rather than slum dwell­ings, he added.

The newly approved strategies aim first at rural areas, since Cam­bodia is a predominantly agrarian society with roughly     80 percent of the population farmers, the minister said.

The draft approved Friday is one part of the many regulations that will be needed to implement the land law. The full regulations are scheduled to be finished next year, Im Chhun Lim said.

Still to be detailed are social con­cessions, land grants aimed at improving the lot of the estimated 12 percent to 20 percent of the population that is landless. Im Chhun Lim said these concessions would be small plots of land, enough for housing and family farming. The social concession grants would be targeted at families with many children, the disabled, de­mobilized soldiers and the re­cent­ly repatriated, he said.

Yet-to-come regulations must al­so pare down economic concessions—large agro-industrial plantations—to a maximum 10,000 hec­­tares. The plantations are now as large as 150,000 hec­tares each, held by wealthy corporations, and many are not be­ing used.

At Friday’s Council of Mini­sters meeting, Prime Minister Hun Sen recommended that the Land Management ministry co­operate with other concerned min­istries, such as Agriculture, Environment and Rural Develop­ment, as well as agencies such as the Cambodian Mine Action Center, Im Chhun Lim reported.