China has allocated 341.4 billion yuan to the exploration of its western regions since the project began six years ago. The information was released on September 5 at a seminar that was part of a political consultative conference. The west is 45.8 per cent of the whole country.

The assistant to the Minister of Finance said that in the last six years, central financing has gradually expanded the scale of payments to ethnic regions in the west of China. Central financing has also strengthened its efforts to protect existing forests and grasslands as well as to return farmland to forest in the west of China.

China has implemented a series of preferential tax polices, useful in promoting the economic and social development of the western regions.

By People's Daily Online