China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region continues to showcase its harmonious relations and economic prosperity gained over the years. Established on 1st May 1947, Inner Mongolia is the first minority autonomous region set up at the provincial level under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and it is where the country started the system of regional autonomy in its ethnic areas.
70 years down the line (1947 – 2017), the Autonomous Region acting on the shared aspirations of people and officials of all ethnic groups, has forged ahead on the glorious journey of regional ethnic autonomy and brought about tremendous changes.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi, addressing an Inner Mongolia Promotion Meeting recently, commended the effort of the Autonomous Region’s officials for working hard over the years to achieved political stability, economic prosperity, cultural progress, social harmony, border tranquillity and well-being of people of all ethnic groups.
“Inner Mongolia has ensured it takes the lead in terms of China’s openness in trade and other economic fronts under the Belt and Road Initiative and has embrace the world with greater vitality,” he said, and added that the promotion of environmental protection, sand control and poverty reduction have made the Autonomous Region an enviable destination in China. The Foreign Minister admonished Inner Mongolia authorities to continue to showcase the Chinese experience of dealing with desertification across the world.
Li Jiheng, the Communist Party Secretary of Inner Mongolia expressed gratitude to authorities for the development and for ensuring the beautiful features, harmonious society and unique culture in the Autonomous Region.
Speaker after speaker including Ambassadors of Mongolia, New Zealand, Italy and Madagascar commended the development effort and the existing ties in terms of trade, culture, health, education that has ensured a win-win situation over the years.
In 2016, the regional GDP reached 1.86 trillion yuan, with an increase of 7.2%, and per capita GDP amounted to 74, 00 yuan, with an increase of 6.9%. Public fiscal revenue reached 201.65 billion yuan, up by 7%, and total fixed assets investment reached 1.55 trillion yuan, with an increase of 11.9%.
Industries of energy, chemistry, metallurgy, construction materials, agriculture and animal husboundry are growing in size and steady towards a higher level in quality. The region is pushing forward the development of new energy, new materials, big data and cloud computing, energy conservation and environmental protection, high-end equipment, biotechnology, and traditional Mongolian and Chinese Medicine, in order to build Inner Mongolia into an important national base of energy, new-type chemistry, non-ferrous metals, green agriculture and animal husbandry, strategic emerging industries and world-class tourist destination.
In 2016, the added value of all industries amounted to 775.82 billion yuan, increased by 7.0%. The growth rate for the added value of industries above a designated scale reached 7.2%. Science and technology innovation played a significant leading role in industrial upgrading with a number of significant achievement in 2016, including rare earth magnetic motor, the exploration of high aluminium coal, the fruitful research of traditional Mongolian pharmaceutical formulation, and first time in region’s history the establishment of two state key labs – the rare earth lab and the special vehicles research lab.
The output of coal production reached 845.5 million tons in 2016; the installed wind power capacity was 25.65 million tons kilowatts, 17% of the country’s total, and the wind power output reached 46.4 billion kwhts. The installed solar power capacity reached 6.36 million kwhs and output 8.3 billion kwhs.
The total urban population stood at 15.42 million and urbanization rate reached 61.2% with an increase of 0.9%.
Abu Bakarr Kargbo is a Senior Staff Writer of Standard Times Newspaper in Sierra Leone and an Intern at People’s Daily Online.