BEIJING -- A second draft amendment to China's law on rural land contracts was submitted on Monday for review to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the top legislature.

The revision identifies and offers clearer support for the transfer of management right of rural land, enabling farmers to retain contract rights over their allotted land and only transfer the management rights if they choose to lease the land to others.

It stipulates the means, procedure and basic requirements for conducting transfers of management rights. The revision also introduces regulation on voluntary registration of management right transfers and forbids farmers from unilaterally dissolving contracts.

Since the country adopted the household responsibility system in the early 1980s, the property rights of rural land have been divided into two layers: ownership rights that are collectively owned by a rural community, normally a village; and the use right, which is held by an individual household that contracts a piece of land from the village.

The first draft revision further separates the use right into "the contract right" and "the management right."