Sixty-six golf courses are shut down in China

On March 30th 2015, National Development and Reform Commission published on its website a list of 66 golf courses that are going to be shut down. National Development and Reform Commission stated that, according to deployment of the State Council, local governments and related departments of the State Council actively carry out their actions on renovation work of golf courses, which have reached phased achievements.

In July 2014, eleven departments including National Development and Reform Commission and Ministry of Land and Resources jointly issued a notification which aims to classify and clear current golf courses by the end of June 30th 2015. The notification was widely regarded as the strictest ban for golf, thereby, the prologue of regulation was pulled open.

In fact, since the end of approval of golf courses in 2014, the governmental level has successively issued tens of similar “bans”. However, it is estimated that, in the past ten years, the number of golf courses in China rises instead, which reaches to 400. Some of them even have survived for over 10 years.

Because of occupation of arable and forest land, large consumption of water, massive use of pesticide and herbicide, as well as no permission of related departments, large number of golf courses in China has cause pretty bad influences to our society.