The country's 22 underpopulated ethnic minorities will benefit
from a new round of poverty alleviation reforms with financial aid
totaling up to 1 billion yuan (US$123.46 million) over the next
five years.
Officials from the State Ethnic Affairs Commission were speaking
at a two-day working conference of the State Council on the
development of underpopulated ethnic groups, which ended yesterday
in Beijing.
The program will start next year with priority given to
infrastructure construction, including water conservation, power
grids, roads, and other public services such as education,
sanitation and culture, Yang Jianqiang, vice-minister of the
commission, said.
The decision follows the adoption of a development plan in May
by the State Council, which indicated that poverty remained an
"outstanding issue" for ethnic minorities.
Official figures indicate that the population of each of the 22
ethnic groups is below 100,000, and that they total only about
630,000 -- less than 0.05 percent of the country's population.
Most of the ethnic minorities live in remote provinces or
autonomous regions, including Xinjiang,
Tibet,
Inner
Mongolia and Yunnan.
The commission acknowledged that the economic development level
of the 22 ethnic minorities lags far behind the country's average,
and they cited unfavorable natural conditions as the main
reason.
"Many of their villages still lack power, highways, primary
schools, clinics and even clean drinking water," Yang said, noting
that a quarter of the ethnic minority population still do not have
an adequate supply of food and clothing.
According to the development plan, living conditions should
reach average standards by 2010.
Dalelhan Abelajan, head of the Tatar Village in Qitai County,
northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, said these
policies will speed up development for the Tatar
minority.
The Tatar minority has a population of 5,000, most of whom live
in Xinjiang.
(China Daily August 31, 2005)
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