13 April 2004 11:46
Xinjiang winning fight against poverty
Author: Impoverished people in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region especially those in the southern part of Xinjiang
have been living a better life, Ismail Tiliwaldi, chairman of the region told a news conference yesterday in Beijing.
"I can announce here that the days when people did not have enough to eat are over now," he said. The last
group of extremely impoverished people in southern Xinjiang shrugged off their poverty during the past year. "What
we will do in the coming years is to help them begin living an even better life," he said. Beginning last year, the
regional government began investing 190 million yuan (US$22.9 million) annually to ensure the children of some 2 million
poor families go to school without charge. That is helping the illiteracy rate drop, with the young and middle-aged rate
dropping to 2 per cent. The chairman said his region will continue encouraging foreign trade and co-operation while
maintaining its characteristic economic and social development. "Opening-up is our long-term policy, and it will
never change," he stressed. Eight bordering countries, including Russia, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, are
trading with the region, along with more than 100 countries and overseas regions. The business partners not only include
the world's economic giants such as the United States, Germany and Japan, but Southeast Asia's Thailand and
China's Hong Kong and Taiwan, Tiliwaldi said. Xinjiang recorded US$4.77 billion of imports and exports last year,
up 77.2 per cent year on year, and 200 times more than in 1978 when reforms and opening-up policies were first initiated
in China. Although an inland region with large areas of desert, Xinjiang has its specialties in agriculture and
industry. In 2003, its output of cotton was 1.6 million tons, accounting for one-third of the total national output.
Besides cotton, Xinjiang has become China's largest producer of hops and tomato sauce, and is one of the major
livestock breeding and beet-sugar producing centres in the whole country. The region is rich in petroleum, gas and coal
resources, which respectively account for more than one-third of the country's total. It produced 21.4 million tons
of oil last year, which was the third largest in the country. Tourism is also a rising industry in Xinjiang. The region
received more than 10 million domestic tourists and 200,000 to 300,000 overseas tourists last year. With the help of the
central government, Xinjiang has been investing heavily in infrastructure in the past few years. Most of the towns and
villages in the region have been connected by roads. The length of railroad is double that from 1989, now more than
3,000 kilometres. The ethnic households are linked by telephone lines and the Internet. More than 1 million people
became netizens by the end of last year. With tangible benefits from economic and social development, Xinjiang people
firmly oppose any terrorist activities that jeopardize their stability, Tiliwaldi said. Regarding anti-terrorism, the
chairman said "violent terrorists are like rats scurrying across a street, hated and detested by everybody."
China has been co-operating with the neighbouring Central Asia countries to fight terrorist forces.
[Business Daily Update] |
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