56-year-old Duo Ji is the owner of a handicraft enterprise. In the past 20 years, from a small shop to a large handicraft company which makes Thangka and Tibetan-style furniture, his career on intangible cultural heritage has seen a significant change. In the past 10 years, his company employed hundreds of apprentices and most of them are herdsmen.

 

According to statistics, over 3,000 people across Tibet work in the Thangka industry. The annual output of the Thangka industry reached 200 million yuan last year. Thangka has become an important industry for the development of Tibet’s intangible cultural heritage.

 

 The development of Tibet’s cultural industry cannot be separable from the governments’ financial support. From 2006 to 2018, the central government has invested 195 million yuan in the protection of the state-level intangible cultural heritage projects. Since 2008, the regional government has increased input on intangible cultural heritage protection from 200,000 to 12 million yuan a year.

 

In Nimu county of Lhasa, there are 25 inheritors of Tibetan incense-making and 88 cooperatives of intangible cultural heritage projects, which provide 1,756 people with jobs. It produces 50 tons of Tibetan incense annually with an annual revenue of 57 million yuan.

 

A serge-making cooperative in Shannan has offered jobs to 226 indigent farmers and people with disabilities. The average annual per capita income at the cooperative has reached 43,000 yuan.