BEIJING, Aug. 29 (Xinhua) -- The Ministry of Finance (MOF) announced that 2.385 billion yuan (360 million U.S. dollars) had been allocated in 2016 so far to support ethnic cultural development in minority areas.

The funding has been used to protect and utilize cultural heritage of minority groups, provide public culture services to ethnic minorities and protect the basic cultural rights and interests of minority groups, said the ministry.

The move not only helped with ethnic cultural development but also national unity, according to the MOF.

China wants to effectively protect the rights and interests of ethnic minorities, and poverty relief in minority regions.

From 2012 to 2015, the number of poverty-stricken people in minority regions including the five autonomous regions of Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Tibet, Ningxia and Xinjiang and the three provinces of Guizhou, Yunnan and Qinghai plummeted from 31.21 million in 2012 to 18.13 million in 2015, according to a report released in June.

The GDP of the eight ethnic minority regions increased from 5.85 trillion yuan to 7.47 trillion yuan, and the per capita disposable income of permanent residents in cities and towns soared from 20,542 yuan to 26,901 yuan in the same period, said the report.