China to spend 16.5 bln on Xinjiang projects: report
Date
3/5/2016 12:19:57 PM
(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) >The government of China’s troubled northwestern region of Xinjiang – home to the Turkic Uighur minority – will allocate more than $16.5 billion this year as part of efforts to improve “local livelihood” state media reported Saturday.
The Standing Committee of the regional Communist Party Committee said the 110 billion yuan would cover around 100 projects in the areas of employment housing agriculture and poverty-relief – among others.
Xinhua news agency cited the Committee as saying that 500000 yuan ($76600) each would be granted to 10000 villages while 1200 poor villages would receive 600 million yuan (nearly $92 million) as “poverty relief”.
Another 24 billion yuan would be set aside for constructing residences for 300000 rural herdsmen under the regional government’s seventh "Livelihood-building Year".
According to Xinhua around 600 billion yuan has already been mobilized under the initiative.
Xinjiang is home to many ethnic minority groups including the Uighur who refer to the region as East Turkestan and consider it to be part of Central Asia not China.
In September a state-sponsored white paper highlighted that public security organs in Xinjiang were on high alert for signs of violent attacks and terrorism in the region and should respond with a heavy crackdown.
Human rights organizations activists and analysts have said that Uighur have been subject to religious cultural and language restrictions which have led them to flee China and helped fuel their demands for a separate state.
By Mahmut Atanur
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