One million poor people in Xinjiang shake off poverty
( 2002-01-22 14:43 ) (8 )

More than 1.32 million farmers and herdsmen living below the poverty line in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region have solved the problem of food and clothing thanks to the implementation of the national poverty alleviation program.

Since China launched the aid-the-poor program in 1994, the per capita annual net income of herdsmen and farmers in Xinjiang has increased to 1,138 yuan (US$137.11), 570 yuan more than the figure in 1993. The ratio of poverty population in rural and pastoral areas has dropped from 20 percent in 1994 to the present 4.4 percent.

Reservoirs have been built one after another in arid villages. Irrigation canals with a total length of 13,000 km link farming plots together.

All counties and townships have access to highway transport as 6,720 km of roads were added. Since a modern transportation network has been set up in Xinjiang, people of the Kazak ethnic group have replaced horses, which used to be the most important and indispensable means of transport, with motorcycles, among others.

A regional government official in charge of poverty reduction said, Xinjiang will make double efforts to provide all poor people with adequate food and clothing in three years and enable the majority of residents in Xinjiang to live a fairly comfortable life in 10 years.