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June 5, 2014

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China鈥檚 top planning body gears up to promote Xinjiang development

CHINA’S top economic planning body is aiming to introduce a variety of support policies for employment, education and poverty reduction in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, it said yesterday.

In the near term, the National Development and Reform Commission will focus on promoting economic and social development and improving living standards in southern Xinjiang, which has difficult geography and lower living standards, it said in a statement.

It also vowed to speed up the building of transport, water conservation and agricultural infrastructure.

These actions will be taken to “continuously enhance equality of basic public services and make sure people of all ethnic groups enjoy the fruits of reform and opening up,” the statement said.

The announcement came as a follow-up to decisions made at the second central work conference on Xinjiang.

The meeting  last week was held in the wake of a series of terrorist attacks, including one at an open air market in Urumqi, the region’s capital, which left 39 people dead on May 20.

A priority of good governance is to improve livelihoods so that people from all ethnic groups feel taken care of by the Party and state, President Xi Jinping said at the meeting, vowing that the government would focus on employment, education and the alleviation of poverty.

Under Xi’s proposals, the government will spend more on education facilities and work to enroll more children in school, as well as carry out more poverty-alleviation programs.

At the meeting, Premier Li Keqiang said employment was the biggest issue concerning people’s livelihoods and urged all enterprises and investment projects in Xinjiang to try their best to employ local people.

The commission said yesterday it plans to speed reform of the administrative approval mechanism, increase the efficiency of the approval process, and create a favorable investment environment.

It would also optimize the allocation of funds for supporting Xinjiang and enhance supervision of how policies aimed at boosting the region’s development are carried out.

In 2010, at the first central work meeting on Xinjiang, it was decided to set up a mechanism under which 19 provinces or major cities, including Shanghai, would provide financial and technological support to Xinjiang.

By the end of April, they had offered 4.58 billion yuan (US$732.6 million) toward this year’s target of 11 billion yuan.

The construction of 592 projects designed to aid Xinjiang’s development had begun by the end of April, accounting for 54.3 percent of the target set for this year.

 


 

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