Published by: THE WORLD UYGHUR NETWORK NEWS November 5, 1997

10/29/97, Beijing Xinhua, FBIS Transcribed Text

Nanning, October 29 (XINHUA) -- China's ethnic minority areas have achieved amazing progress in turning their rich resources to economic advantage in the last couple of years, a senior government official reported to a recent conference.

The gross domestic product (GDP) of areas inhabited by ethnic minorities in China has grown at an average annual rate of 12.7 percent in the past five years, higher than the national average, Tudao Doje, vice minister of the State Nationalities Affairs Commission, told a national conference on ethnic development in Beihai, a port city in southern China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

The economic strength of ethnic minority regions has greatly improved with fixed assets increasing by 337.5 billion yuan in the 1992-96 period, mainly as a result of tapping their natural resources, Tudao said. Industrial output rose from 188 billion yuan to 488.5 billion yuan, representing an annual growth of 14 percent, he said. Tudao credited the achievement to new trends in fully exploiting natural resources in such regions.

The majority of China's minorities live in the Xinjiang Uygur, Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Guangxi Zhuang and Ningxia Hui autonomous regions, 13 autonomous prefectures and 121 autonomous counties with a combined population of 103 million. Economic growth of these regions long has lagged behind that of other parts of the country because of poor transportation, inadequate funding and a lack of technical expertise.

The central government's new policy of speeding up economic development in central and western China combined with a market economy have provided the impetus for rapid growth in ethnic minority regions, Tudao said.