The number of people under the poverty line in Tibet has plummeted from 480,000 in 1994 to 70,000, according to officials attending the meeting on aiding the poor and development in session in Lhasa.
Following years of carrying out the poverty relief plan, the ratio of poor people in the Tibet Autonomous Region has plunged from 18.3 percent to 2.7 percent.
With good grain harvests for 13 straight years, Tibet is now among the most advanced in China in terms of per- capita meat and milk production.
As a major part of the poverty relief plan, nearly 86 percent of all schooling-age children in Tibet are now at school.
The focus of the poverty relief plan has changed from solving the basic needs of food and clothing to improving the living standard and comprehensive abilities, said Dan Zeng, deputy secretary of Tibet Regional Committee of Chinese Communist Party.
(People’s Daily 06/19/2001)
