Society

$5b spent on ethnic areas' poverty relief

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-12-22 18:50

BEIJING - The Chinese government has spent 34.24 billion yuan ($5.1 billion) in poverty relief in regions inhabited by ethnic minorities over the past five years, said a senior ethnic affairs official here Wednesday.

Poverty relief funding to eight provinces and autonomous regions largely inhabited by people from ethnic minorities - Inner Mongolia, Tibet, Guangxi, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Yunnan, Guizhou and Qinghai - had increased by 15 percent annually over the past five years, higher than the average growth of poverty relief funds allocated by the central government nationwide, said Yang Jing, minister in charge of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, at the bimonthly session of the top legislature.

In addition, the central government has allocated 3.04 billion yuan ($453.73 million) in boosting economic and social development in the eight provinces and autonomous regions since 2006, registering an annual increase of 28.9 percent, Yang said in a report to the 18th session of the Standing Committee of the 11th National People's Congress (NPC), running from December 20 to 25.

Thanks in part to increased government investment, the gross domestic product (GDP) of the eight provinces and regions reached 3.46 trillion yuan and the GDP per capita reached 18,014 yuan in 2009, he said.

People living in absolute poverty in rural areas of the eight regions and provinces dropped from 30.76 million in 2001 to 14.52 million in 2009.

Yang admitted, however, that ethnic minority regions still lagged far behind the developed eastern regions and the government still faced serious challenges to reduce poverty.

The disposable income of urban residents in the eight provinces and regions accounted for 82.9 percent of the national level and net income of rural residents accounted for 72.4 percent of the national level, he said.

Yang pledged that the government would continue to step up infrastructure development in ethnic minority regions and spend more on education, medical services, poverty relief and environmental protection.