China's State Council Information Office issued a white paper on China's progress in poverty reduction and human rights on Monday. The pace of poverty alleviation in ethnic minority areas has been quickened. From 2012 to 2015, the central government allocated 14.59 billion yuan to bring prosperity to border areas and ethnic minorities and protect the traditional handicrafts. The state will invest 5.5 billion yuan for infrastructure construction in these areas to improve the working and living conditions and promote social development.

 

During the 12th Five-Year Plan period, the impoverished population of the five autonomous regions (Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Tibet, Ningxia, and Xinjiang) and the three provinces with concentrated ethnic minority groups (Guizhou, Yunnan and Qinghai) dropped from 39.17 million in 2011 to 18.13 million, and the poverty incidence declined from 27.2 percent to 12.4 percent.