Relations among ethnic groups are moving in a favorable direction in China, including Xinjiang and Tibet, thanks to economic growth and government efforts, a senior state ethnic official said Monday.

"People from different groups are working together to build a well-off society," said Wu Shimin deputy director of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission (SEAC), at a press conference Monday. "But, of course, there are problems and conflicts."

China published a white paper Monday on the country's regional autonomy system for ethnic minorities adopted half a century ago, believed to be an effective way to maintain the harmony among ethnic groups.

China now has five provincial autonomous regions, 30 autonomous prefectures and 120 autonomous counties (banners for Mongolian) for ethnic minorities, covering 64 percent of China's total territory.

Many ethnic minorities habitats are less developed because they are located in remote areas with a poor natural environment, such as the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and deserts in northwest China, Wu said.

Since China opened to the rest of the world 20 years ago, foreign investment has flowed into China, but only 5 percent has gone to ethnic minorities areas. This slowed their development, he said.

The country is working on a development plan from 2005 to 2010 to help improve lives of ethnic minorities whose population is fewer than 100,000, said Mao Gongning, director of the Policy & Law Department of SEAC.

With the plan, the government will try to pull needy people of those ethnic minority groups out of poverty in next six years.

According to the SEAC, 22 of China's 55 ethnic minorities each has population less than 100,000 and most of them are living in faraway countryside or along borders.

The central government has spent 117 million yuan (14.15 million US dollars) from 2002 to 2004 building infrastructure facilities such as roads, water and electricity supplies and culture projects, Mao said.

It also invested 264 million yuan (31.92 million US dollars) in about 20,000 projects on poor border regions to improve facilities, develop agriculture and protect the environment from 2000 to 2004, he added.