China Promotes Development of Western Region

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, March 06, 2002

China Promotes Development of Western Region

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Large-scale development of China's western region and coordinated regional economic development will be vigorously promoted this year, said Zeng Peiyan, minister in charge of the State Development Planning Commission on Wednesday.

Zeng made the remark in his Report on the Implementation of the 2001 Plan for National Economic and Social Development and on the Draft 2002 Plan for National Economic and Social Development, to the second plenary meeting of the Fifth Session of the Ninth National People's Congress (NPC).

"We will continue to improve infrastructure and ecological conditions in the western region, with efforts first of all directed at developing science, technology and education, stepping up development of industries that exploit local conditions and transforming resource advantages into economic advantages," he said.

Improving the infrastructure and working and living conditions in western rural areas will be high on the agenda. To be more specific, China will strive to ensure that every county is served by asphalt roads, every township will have electricity, radio and television coverage will be extended down to every village, and that the household contract system for returning cultivated land to woodland will be implemented.

The ten-year plan for the development of trained personnel in the western region and the policies and measures that support the development of the region will be implemented. "We will step up the exchange of cadres between the eastern region and central government departments on one hand and the western region on the other and improve the training work," Zeng said.

The central region should vigorously develop new economic growth points and economic belts by fully exploiting its advantageous geographical position as a bridge between the east and the west that stretches from the north to the south and its overall resource advantages and by taking advantage of the country 's program for industrial restructuring and development of the western region.

Efforts to speed up development of the central region will be supported with government investment in capital construction and technological upgrading projects. The eastern region should continue its industrial restructuring efforts, develop an internationally oriented economy, enhance its international competitiveness and strengthen economic and technological cooperation with the central and western regions to strengthen its role in stimulating their development, the official said.

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