Authorities plough through 438 project assessments in search of land tax

Source: Vientiane Times, January 10, 2020: http://www.vientianetimes.org.la/login/index.php?ref=/sub-new/Current/Curr_Authorities_7.php
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Authorities last year assessed 438 projects nationwide involving land leases and government concessions in a bid to tighten up on the payment of land taxes.

This work was reported by the Vientiane Department of Natural Resources and Environment at a recent meeting on land leases and government concessions across the country.

The assessment focused on seven scenarios, namely so-called ghost projects, cancelled projects, expired projects, implementing projects, those without land leases and concessions from the government, conflicted projects, and projects transferred from state ownership to private use.

To effectively address land management issues this year, authorities will step up the monitoring of leases and government land concessions through the K4D project, to ensure the officials involved have access to all the information they need.

This will assist in reporting the progress of land allocation, matching planning to environmental surroundings, and the creation of a modern land administration system.

During the meeting, authorities established 10 processes to enhance land management as well as assist the tracking of leases and government land concessions, especially projects authorised by the government.

Last year, the Department of Agricultural Land Management developed a new Land Use Information System in cooperation with its partners.

The Land Use Information System is an integrated web-based system with its main functions being the uploading and retrieval of all available land use plans, calculation of statistics, entry of metadata, and viewing current and future land use plans on a web map. Utilising this system also allows land use plans to be made available to the public.

The department is currently writing a new decree on agricultural land management. The decree was presented to the audience, and feedback discussions were conducted to improve the current version of the draft.