The state implements a compensation system for the occupation of arable land and strictly controls various behaviors of occupying arable land; The ecological protection compensation funds obtained from ecological protection areas should be used for the protection of natural resources, ecological environment governance and restoration, economic and social development, and improvement of people's livelihoods in the local area; The account limit for simplified withdrawal of small deposits by deceased depositors has been uniformly increased to 50000 yuan... Focusing on public concerns and serving the overall development, a series of new regulations such as the Food Security Law of the People's Republic of China, the Regulations on Ecological Protection Compensation, and the Notice on Optimizing the Requirements for Small Deposit Withdrawal by deceased depositors have been implemented from June 1st, effectively promoting high-quality economic and social development with the power of the rule of law. The Food Security Law will officially come into effect in June, comprehensively consolidating the foundation of food security and ensuring food security has always been a top priority related to China's national economy and people's livelihood. Starting from June 1st, the Food Security Law of the People's Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as the "Food Security Law") will officially come into effect. Chen Zhuyong, Deputy Director of the Regulations Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, stated that in recent years, China has had consecutive bumper harvests of grain, sufficient inventory, and abundant market supply. At the same time, the foundation of China's food security is still unstable. Further solving the structural contradiction between food supply and demand, addressing resource and environmental constraints, and aging agricultural labor force, improving food production capacity remains the primary task. As the first fundamental and comprehensive law in the field of food security in China, the Food Security Law adheres to the overall national security concept and provides systematic regulations on various aspects related to food security, such as farmland protection, production, transportation, storage, and sales, emergency response, and conservation and loss reduction. It provides strong legal guarantees for improving the ability to prevent and resist food security risks, and comprehensively consolidating the foundation of national food security. How to prioritize the protection of grain by adhering to the principle of using good farmland and good soil? The Food Security Law explicitly stipulates that the state strictly controls the conversion of cultivated land into other agricultural land such as forests, grasslands, and gardens. Cultivated land should mainly be used for the production of grain, cotton, oil, sugar, vegetables, and other agricultural products, as well as forage and feed; At the same time, it is also stipulated that the country should establish a strict system for protecting the quality of cultivated land, strengthen the construction of high standard farmland, improve and perfect the mechanism for diversified investment guarantee, and enhance the quality of cultivated land. "The root of grain production lies in arable land." Chen Zhuyong said that by consolidating the responsibility of local party committees and governments at all levels to protect arable land from a legal perspective, he has provided a "long tooth" hard measure to curb the "non agriculturalization" of arable land, prevent "non grainification", and strengthen the construction and protection of arable land in accordance with the law. In order to encourage farmers to grow grain and local governments to be more proactive, the Food Security Law clearly stipulates the responsibilities of the main grain production areas, main sales areas, and production sales balance areas, and encourages "the main grain production areas and main sales areas to establish stable production and sales relationships in various forms". "Enterprises in the main grain sales areas establish grain source bases, processing bases, and warehousing and logistics facilities in the main grain production areas, promoting regional food supply and demand balance". At the same time, it is also stipulated to "improve the mechanism for ensuring the income of grain producers, with the goal of improving the market mechanism to improve the agricultural support and protection system and the mechanism for forming grain prices", "improve the compensation mechanism for the interests of major grain producing areas, improve the financial transfer payment system for major grain producing areas and counties, and mobilize the enthusiasm for grain production". "For a long time, the main grain producing areas have invested more financial funds in agricultural construction and grain subsidies, and some major grain producing counties are facing problems such as heavy financial burden, relatively slow economic development, and increased ecological environment pressure." Lu Qianwen, Deputy Researcher at the Institute of Rural Development of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that based on the trend of the evolution of China's grain production and sales pattern, the Food Security Law has made corresponding institutional arrangements, which is conducive to fundamentally solving the development dilemma of "grain wealth inversion" in some major production areas, promoting agricultural efficiency and income growth for grain producers, and protecting the enthusiasm of grain producers for grain cultivation. To ensure food security, efforts should be made simultaneously in increasing production and reducing losses. The Food Security Law clearly stipulates that the state implements strict conservation and opposes waste. It stipulates that people's governments at or above the county level should establish and improve a mechanism that combines guidance, incentives, and punishment education, strengthen leadership and supervision of food conservation work, and promote food conservation work. The China Agricultural Industry Development Report 2023 shows that by 2035, if the loss rates of grain harvesting, storage, processing, and consumption in China are reduced by 1 to 3 percentage points respectively, it can reduce the losses of the three major staple grains by about 110 billion kilograms. Lu Qianwen stated that the relevant regulations target the entire grain production, sales, and supply chain, providing a solid legal guarantee for reducing the "leakage" of grain from the fields to the dining table, and reflecting the substantive transformation of loss reduction and conservation from concept advocacy to action measures. This is an inevitable requirement for the high-quality development of the entire food industry and supply chain. Starting from June 1st, the Regulations on Ecological Protection Compensation (hereinafter referred to as the "Regulations") will be implemented to establish the basic institutional rules for ecological protection compensation and stimulate the endogenous power of the whole society to care for the ecological environment. The Regulations consolidate and expand the provisions and requirements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council on ecological protection compensation, as well as effective experience and practices, in the form of comprehensive and fundamental administrative regulations, and establish the basic institutional rules of ecological protection compensation. The Regulations clearly stipulate that ecological protection compensation refers to an incentive system arrangement that compensates units and individuals who carry out ecological protection in accordance with regulations or agreements through mechanisms such as fiscal vertical compensation, regional horizontal compensation, and market mechanism compensation. In recent years, the Chinese government has increased its support for ecological protection entities and key areas through various means, and the scale of compensation funds has been increasing year by year. "The promulgation of the" Regulations "further clarifies the investment responsibilities of the central and local governments at the legislative level, and proposes ways to guide the participation of social entities." Wang Xintong, head of the Regional Revitalization Department of the National Development and Reform Commission, introduced. In terms of stabilizing central financial investment, the Regulations specify that the state should increase the investment of compensation funds, gradually expand the scope of compensation implementation, and reasonably raise compensation standards. This will effectively ensure the continuous investment of ecological protection compensation funds and stabilize the foundation of the ecological protection policy system. In terms of encouraging local governments to increase investment, the Regulations specify that local people's governments can establish classified compensation mechanisms based on local conditions and increase investment in ecological protection. This provides a legal basis for horizontal ecological protection compensation between different regions, which is conducive to forming a pattern of joint investment by governments at all levels and joint protection by upstream and downstream of the river basin. In terms of mobilizing the enthusiasm of social entities to participate, the Regulations propose various ways for social entities to participate in ecological protection compensation, including establishing and improving trading mechanisms for carbon emission rights, pollution discharge rights, water rights, carbon sink rights, etc., promoting the construction of trading markets, developing ecological industries, establishing sustainable benefit sharing mechanisms, and establishing ecological protection compensation funds and implementing market-oriented operations. At present, the construction of ecological civilization is in a critical period of pressure accumulation and heavy burden. The promulgation of the Regulations and the establishment of a comprehensive long-term investment system for ecosystem protection are conducive to providing peace of mind for ecological protection entities and fully protecting green waters and mountains. The "Regulations" use compensation as a link and incentives as a means to adhere to the principles of ecological prosperity, ecological benefits, and ecological welfare. They establish a mechanism for sharing benefits between ecological beneficiaries and protectors, which can also stimulate the internal driving force of the whole society to care for the ecological environment Guo Lanfeng, a member of the Party Group of the National Development and Reform Commission, said. The notice on optimizing the requirements for withdrawing small deposits from deceased depositors (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice") issued by the State Administration for Financial Regulation and other departments has been officially implemented since June 1st, in response to public concerns and protection of the legitimate rights and interests of inheritors. Many people are concerned about the impact of the Notice on handling deposit inheritance? Experts explain that for a long time, according to relevant regulations, inheritors who apply to banks to withdraw deposits from deceased relatives must submit a notarized inheritance certificate issued by a notary public. This has played a positive role in ensuring deposit security and protecting the interests of heirs. However, some people, especially those in remote areas and economically disadvantaged groups, have reported that if notarization is still required despite the limited amount of deposits that need to be withdrawn, the time and economic costs are relatively high. In 2021, the former China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and other departments issued relevant notices to cancel the notarization requirements for the first order heirs, heirs designated by notarized wills or legatees to withdraw deposits of up to 10000 yuan from deceased depositors, and allow banks to increase their limit between 10000 yuan and 50000 yuan. The head of relevant departments and bureaus of the State Administration for Financial Regulation said that the relevant policies benefited nearly 690000 deceased depositors in deposit withdrawals that year, achieving good results. To further facilitate the handling of deposit inheritance by the public, the Notice uniformly increases the account limit for simplified withdrawal of small deposits by deceased depositors to 50000 yuan. At the same time, the heads of relevant departments and bureaus of the State Administration for Financial Regulation stated that, considering the differences in economic development levels, credit environment, and risk control levels of various financial institutions in different regions, rural small and medium-sized banks should implement this requirement by December 31, 2025, in order to better protect deposit security. In addition, the Notice also expanded the scope of simplified withdrawal, including gold deposit products, treasury bond and financial products, and the relevant amount was included in the 50000 yuan account limit; Simplify the extraction of funeral expenses and pension funds. Funeral expenses and pension funds are not included in the 50000 yuan account limit and can be fully simplified for extraction. According to the Personal Information Protection Law, if a natural person dies, their close relatives may exercise the rights of access, copying, correction, deletion, and other related personal information of the deceased for their legitimate and legitimate interests as stipulated in this chapter. The head of relevant departments and bureaus of the State Administration for Financial Regulation stated that in reality, there is a reasonable need for heirs to query the transaction details of deceased depositors in specific circumstances. After soliciting opinions from multiple parties, the Notice clearly states that banks can provide account transaction details for the deceased depositor after their death and within 6 months prior to their death at the request of the first in line heirs. The heads of relevant departments and bureaus of the State Administration for Financial Regulation stated that they will continue to monitor the implementation of relevant policies, respond to public concerns in a timely manner, and effectively safeguard the safety of deposits and the legitimate rights and interests of heirs. (Lai Xin She)