BEIJING, Oct 28:Chinese lawmakers are debating the nation's first property law, which could change the way the country views private property, state media reported on Saturday.

The standing committee of the National People's Congress is deliberating the law for a record sixth time, but the bill can only be promulgated at the earliest by the full session of the legislature which meets in March, Xinhua news agency said.

Central to the debate is the concept of private property protections which "experts say could undermine the legal foundation of China's socialist system," the report said.

The latest draft makes "the protection of state, collective, and private property" the main principle of legislation, but places state ownership rights at the heart of China's economic system, it added.

The controversial bill was first submitted to the legislature in 2002, but was withdrawn from the congress' full session last March amid worries that China's socialist system would be undermined "if the rights of individuals superseded the state's right to care for the collective good," the report said.

Conversely, the bureaucracy's stranglehold over state assets, including the state's ownership over all land, has led to massive corruption by government officials during the last 20 years of economic reforms, it said.

"The biggest problem is that corrupt government officials conspire with businessmen to prey on state assets in the process of restructuring and merging," Xinhua quoted Huang Shuhe, deputy director of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, as saying.

Lawmakers are debating adding clauses to the law that would prevent fraudulent acquisitions and mergers of state assets.

"People who (fraudulently) create losses of state assets through restructuring, acquisition, or insider trading will be responsible to the law," says the sixth version of the bill, which was submitted for debate during the current session.

The 45-page draft also protects individual rights to

bank accounts, earned profits and residential property.—AFP