Tibet Information Network / 188-196 Old St, London EC1 9FR, UK

ph: +44-171 814 9011 fax: +44-171 814 9015

email: tinadmin@gn.apc.org tin@gn.apc.org

------------ TIN - AN INDEPENDENT INFORMATION SERVICE -------------

TIN News Update / 18 July, 1997/ total no of pages: 3 ISSN 1355-3313

1997 Plan for TAR: Agriculture, Industry and Re-education -

Policy in the Tibet Autonomous Region during 1997 will continue to focus on economic construction, particularly in the agricultural areas, and the region aims to achieve a 10% growth in the economy for the fourth successive year, according to its annual work report, copies of which reached London last week.

The region plans to accelerate the development of the five "pillar" industries, which include mining, forestry, tourism and building. Incidental objectives include ending the social service role of state enterprises, attracting private entrepreneurs from outside Tibet, and continuing to plan to build a railway into central Tibet. The re-education of monks and nuns is to continue after last year's "experiment", on the grounds that they are a hindrance to social stability, along with the re-organisation of monasteries and the halting of unauthorised building of temples.

The report, which said that the region's output had gone up by 10% last year, noted that the grain yield had increased by 7.9% to 770,000 tonnes. A much greater increase was recorded in the towns, where the average urban income rose by over 25% to reach 5,030 yuan [$600] per person.

This makes urban residents of Lhasa wealthier on average than town dwellers in China, where the average income last year was only 4,300 yuan [$518]. It also means that urban incomes in the TAR are already 16% over the target set for the year 2,000 in the 9th Five Year Plan, which was published only last year.

Urban incomes are now over five times the size of rural incomes, and growing at twice the rate. Rural incomes increased by 11% last year but still reached only 975 yuan [$117] per person, half the average rural income in China, and a strong indication of a rapidly growing gulf between the towns and the countryside in Tibet.

Industrial output rose by 10.4% to represent a sixth of the TAR's GDP, an 19% increase in its share of the economy. Price rises were kept down during 1996, but the report gave no figures for unemployment or inflation last year.

Economic Plans: Strengthen Agriculture -

The region will continue to make economic construction its "central task" this year, according to the report, which has set a target for economic growth of 10 per cent in 1997, as required by the current regional five year plan. Total grain output, however, is expected to reach 820,000 tonnes by the end of the year, an increase of 5.5%. Development will focus firstly on strengthening agriculture, which is described as "the foundation of the economy", but much of the growth is expected to come in the industrial sector. The report, which was published in the Tibetan papers on 29th May, was issued in translation by the BBC Summary of World Broadcasts in June.

"Governments at various levels should unswervingly give first priority to agriculture in economic work," says the report, which says Tibet's target is to become self-sufficient in grain, oil and meat. The government plans to continue to increase investment in agriculture, to encourage "water conservancy" - irrigation and dam construction by farmers [??] - to improve technical skills, and to introduce high yield seed. There are fewer than usual references to the pastoral economy, but the number of animals owned by herders will be controlled and the slaughter rate increased, according to the TAR authorities, who regard excessive herd size as the main cause of economic sluggishness and of grassland degradation on the Tibetan plateau.

Much of the region's development strategy is directed at finding ways to deal with loss-making state-owned companies, for instance by selling shares and trading on the stock market or by merging loss-making enterprises with more successful businesses to form a "mechanism for the survival of the fittest".

"Individual enterprises with poor management and backward technical equipment that cannot turn out marketable goods and whose assets cannot cover their debts should be declared bankrupt on a trial basis," states the government work report, which notes that initial improvement of these moribund state enterprises should take place mainly in Lhasa, where 60% of the total capital of all state-owned enterprises in the region is located.

As in China, the state-owned enterprises are told to rid themselves of their social service functions and to "make arrangements for the diversion of the enterprises' redundant personnel". The move will increase unemployment in the region, as in China, and the Tibet Government plans to "gradually establish a social security system suited to the socialist market economic structure" based on insurance payments to cover old-age, unemployment, and medical needs. The report makes no commitment to provide free medical care or education, effectively disbanded in China.

The Five Pillar Industries -

"The main direction of economic work" in the TAR is accelerating the development of "five pillar industries" - mining, forestry, agricultural and livestock by-products and handicrafts, tourism, and building. The five industries are planned to turn out products "on a large scale as soon as possible".

The focus of industrialisation in Tibet is on developing mining. "We should do a good job in building and managing major mines, liberalise and invigorate small ones [and] accelerate the prospecting of mineral resources," says the report, which notes that the region produced 112,000 tonnes of chrome ore last year.

Processing of minerals and of timber will be encouraged within the region, instead of transporting ores and uncut logs to processing plants outside the region, and "a coordinated industrial network for the growing of forests" will be developed, together with measures for the protection of forest reserves. Last year the region made 87.74m yuan [$10.57 million] from forestry, an increase of 7.6% over 1995.

The development of the five industries depends on attracting "private entrepreneurs from outside Tibet to set up industries in our region and give full play to their role in invigorating the circulation of commodities in urban and rural areas and enriching the lives of the masses," a policy which will fuel allegations by Tibetans that the Chinese government is encouraging Chinese traders to move into the area and dominate the economy.

The 1997 strategy also calls for the acceleration of the construction of hydro-electric projects at Yamdrok Tso, Menlha and Woka, to bring installed capacity up to at least 30,000 kw, an increase in power supply of around 50%. "We should make full preparations for building a railway into Tibet", says the report, for the second year running. The railway project was abandoned in 1987 because of the cost, but was revived on paper in 1994 at an initial cost of 20 billion yuan [$2.4 billion] .

As in previous years the report listed a number of factors or "contradictions" which impede Tibet's development. These include the lack of an industrial foundation, the weakness of the agricultural sector, the inefficiency of state-owned enterprises, excessive bureaucracy and the slow growth of government revenue. The pressures of unemployment and dealing with acute poverty were described as "tremendous", but price rises, cited as a major difficulty in 1995, were not listed as a problem.

The Guiding Thought: Attack Splittism -

The list of problems facing the economy in Tibet included, as in previous government reports, the "separatist activities of the Dalai clique aided by Western hostile forces", said to have increased during the year. The campaign against separatism, described as "the important guiding thought for efficiently carrying out this year's tasks", is to be intensified during 1997, according to the work report.

"We should enable the people across the region really to understand the Dalai's political reaction and religious hypocrisy," states the report, which devotes three sections to the need to carry out patriotic and ideological education, particularly in monasteries. "We should further strengthen the patriotic education of monks and nuns so they will love the country", says the report, adding that monasteries must be reorganised to "firmly stop the practices of wantonly building temples and lamaseries" and "indiscriminately taking in people as Buddhist monks or nuns".

In a statement which could be an important ideological re-assertion, policy towards non-Chinese peoples and cultures is defined as subsidiary to economic objectives. "Nationality work should be persistently done around the central task of economic construction", says the formulation, which is not used either in last year's five year plan on which this report is based or in the published documents of the 1994 Third Forum which established current policies. The formula covers religious policy and is used in the report to explain the need for re-organisation and re-education in monasteries.

The report does, however, repeat instructions in previous annual reports that attention should be paid to the study of Tibetan language and that rules relating to the use of Tibetan language should be implemented "to the letter".

Investment From Hinterland -

Tibet's economy last year attracted substantial subsidies, equivalent to at least half the value of its output, which came from Chinese provinces as well as from the centre.

"Departments and commissions under the party Central Committee and the State council, together with 14 provinces and municipalities in support of Tibet, attach great importance to their work of assisting Tibet, and they started an unprecedented upsurge of aid to the region," stated the report.

The policy of getting inland provinces to invest in Tibetan infrastructure was laid down by the Third Work Forum three years ago and led to some 150 teams of experts being been sent to the TAR by provinces and ministries to prepare proposals for investment. Since the forum met, 6,688 "cooperation projects" have been carried out costing 877 million yuan [$105 million], much of it from the 14 inland provinces, according to the report.

The projects started by the 14 inland provinces are 10-year plans which include mobilising "personnel from their departments and commissions to provide all-round aid for the region". 658 cadres from Chinese provinces were sent to work in the TAR during 1996, according to the report, compared to the 500 sent in the previous year.

56 of the 62 large scale infrastructure projects initiated at the time of the Third Forum in 1994 have been completed at a cost of 3.67 billion yuan [$440 million]. "Most of such projects were excellent ones," notes the report, suggesting that some may have failed.

The policy of inland investment in the TAR is part of a larger plan announced at the Third Forum in 1994 to end Tibet's tendency of separate development in the early 1980s. The economic reforms in Tibet are to be carried out "according to the principle of consistency with the framework of the country and linking up with the economic structure in other parts of the country", stated the report, emphasising the attempt to integrate the Tibetan economy within the larger Chinese economy.

"The concept that "the people of Han nationality cannot do without those of minority nationalities, neither can the latter do without the former" struck root in the hearts of the people, and a new chapter on national unity was added to history," reported Gyaltsen Norbu, governor of the region, who delivered the report to the regional People's Congress on 15th May.