The living condition for 620,000 villagers of 53 different ethnic minority groups in east China's Shandong Province has improved during the past five years, thanks to a number of just-completed power, telecommunications and highway projects launched by the local government.
Ding Hongwen, director of the ethnic affairs commission of the province said electricity and telephone telecommunications are accessible to every family of the ethnic minorities while 67 percent of the villages inhabited by the ethnic minority groups are linked up with newly-built tarmacadams.
The official said about 30 million yuan has been used during the past five years for infrastructure projects in a bid to build highways, transmit power, and supply drinking water for those villagers.
The Hui ethnic group is the biggest of the 53 groups, accounting for about 90 percent of the 620,000 villagers of ethnic minorities, which scatter in 450 ethnic villages in the province.
Most of the ethnic minorities used to live in poverty due to poor natural and living conditions.
(People’s Daily October 29, 2001)
