BEIJING, Dec. 22 -- China's northern regions, five of which hold nearly 40 percent of the country's arable land, play a key role in farmland protection, said a State Council report submitted on Sunday to the country's national legislature.

The report on farmland protection was submitted to an ongoing session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress for deliberation.

The total area of arable land in the country stands at nearly 1.93 billion mu (128.67 million hectares), with the cultivated land of the five northern provincial-level regions of Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, Henan, Jilin and Xinjiang, accounting for nearly 40 percent of the total, said the report.

The report noted an increase of 11.2 million mu in the total farmland compared to the figure registered in the third national land survey, driven by the country's continued efforts to steadily expand farmland in southern regions and improve the legal framework for farmland protection.

Noting that northern regions still face heavy farmland protection challenges due to water shortage and over-farming, the report stressed the need to further optimize farmland distribution nationwide.