Working in accordance with its actual situation, the Tibet Autonomous Region,over the past four decades, has fully exercised the autonomous rights granted by the law in regard to economic and social development. It has worked out and implemented its own Five-Year Plan, setting targets for rapid economic and social development and making great efforts to improve the basic infrastructure, better people's life and arranging economic and social development projects independently. This guarantees that Tibet will always enjoy fast and healthy social and economic development in accordance with its actual conditions.

Economic and social development of the Tibet Autonomous Region has always enjoyed the great support from the Central Government and aid from areas throughout the nation. Since the early 1950s, the State had been giving special support to Tibetan economic development. It has allocated large amounts of financial subsidies, subsidized special projects and invested in key construction projects. It has also sent a large amount of material aid to Tibet. In the 1980s, the Central Government decided to pursue policies for recovery in Tibet and abolished the agricultural tax. Since 1984, the policies of for recovery in Tibet and abolished the agricultural tax. Since 1984, the policies of "long-term household land use and independent management" and "long-term private ownership of livestock and independent management" have been adopted in the agricultural and pastoral areas of Tibet. In June 2001, the Central Government decided to implement the special preferential financial policies featuring "total retention of harvests, progressive increase in subsidies, and special allocation for special aid projects" in Tibet, and at the same time introduced 50 preferential policies and defined 117 aid-Tibet projects. According to statistics, during the period of time from 2001 to 2005, the accumulated financial subsidies that the Central Government granted to Tibet, with the national debt and special funds for capital construction excluded, amounted to 47.5 billion Yuan, accounting for 92 percent or more of Tibet's total financial expense. These subsidies effectively ensured the needs of Tibetan economic and social leap-forward development for capital.

Since the aid-Tibet work started in 1995, great progress has been made. By the end of 2006, there are 18 provinces and municipalities directly under the Central Government, about 60 national ministries and 17 key State firms attending the aid-Tibet work. Four groups of more than 2,890 aid0Tibet cadres were sent to Tibet by the Central Govern-ment to work on 3,170 aid projects. Tibet has received a total amount of 6.2 billion Yuan, Thus, unprecedented changes occurred in the visage of Tibet as a whole.

In June to July 2007, the substitution of the fourth group of aid-Tibet cadres for the fifth will be conducted nationwide.

At present, Tibet is enjoying the best stage in economic and social development. Although the living of the people of various ethnic groups in Tibet has been improved greatly, due to special geographical environment and history, Tibet failed to attract enough investment from outside the region. Insufficient capital accumulation and slow structural reform of the investment system resulted in the increase in investment. This is why Tibet still belongs to one of China's less developed areas. And more than 80 percent of investment used for economic development in Tibet comes from the Central Government inance, and 90 percent of financial expenditure of the Tibet Autonomous Region is paid by the Central Government finance too. To better implement the leap-forward development strategy and expedite the process of building the well-off society in an all-round way in Tibet still needs more support and aid from the Central Government. In this regrard, the Central Government made decision in November 2006 to continue to carry out the preferential policies and support measures during the period from 2006-2010. In the meanwhile, according to the needs of Tibetan development, the Central Government will increase the support in terms of agriculture, countryside, farmers, infrastructure, human resources, education, science, health, culture and social security to promote the rapid development of economy and society in Tibet Autonomous Region.

( Source: China's Tibet Facts & Figures 2008 )