On June 6, the Department of Natural Resources and Land of Zhejiang Province decided to designate 24 mining rights—including the granite mine in Longxi Village, Zhongshan Township, Tonglu County—as pilot projects for the integrated development and utilization of mining and land resources across the province.

　　It is understood that the integrated development and utilization of mining areas refers to a resource-consolidated development and utilization model in which the holder of an open-pit mining right undertakes unified planning, comprehensive development, and efficient utilization of both mineral resources within the mining area’s boundaries and land resources formed after mining operations. The pilot projects involve mining rights—existing or proposed—that, upon completion of extraction, can generate land suitable for construction and have clearly defined plans for the use of mined land. For example, one of the 24 pilot projects is the Xiaoyangshan Land-Preparation Project for Construction Use in Aixi Town, Wuxing District, Huzhou City, which involves a tuff deposit with estimated reserves of 16.65 million tons. The project is expected to utilize a land area of 1,420 mu, with a planned extraction period of two years and an anticipated availability of mined land starting from October 2020.

　　The Zhejiang Provincial Department emphasized that, while conducting thorough feasibility studies for defining mining area boundaries, pilot projects should further streamline their plans. Based on the final land-use plan following the completion of mining activities, if it is determined that certain slopes do not require remediation and certain mined lands do not need to be reclaimed, the mining right holders may choose not to prepare a geological environmental protection and remediation & land reclamation plan, nor are they required to deposit funds into the geological environmental remediation and restoration fund or pay land reclamation fees.

　　The Zhejiang Provincial Department emphasized the need to further enhance service efficiency. Mining rights trading institutions should coordinate in advance with county-level land and resources departments to prioritize the preparation of mining rights transfer plans, incorporate the requirements related to the pilot program for integrated utilization of mining areas into these plans and transfer contracts, and clearly state such requirements in the transfer announcements. The mining rights registration and approval authorities should ensure smooth coordination among all stages of the approval process; for mining registration applications that meet the eligibility criteria and have complete and compliant documentation, the approval process shall be completed within 5 working days from the date of acceptance.