Tibet receives projects worth 20 bln yuan from partners across China since 2012

LHASA, March 28 (Xinhua) -- A total of 2,806 projects involving 20 billion yuan (around 2.97 billion U.S. dollars), supported by partners across CHINA, have been implemented in Tibet Autonomous Region since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of CHINA (CPC) was held in 2012.

The assistance came from 17 supporting provinces and cities, 16 centrally-administered state-owned enterprises, and over 70 CPC Central Committee departments and state ministries and commissions.

Over the past seven years, these groups have also sent more than 3,000 officials and professionals to Tibet.

Assistance provided by education and medical professionals, in particular, has delivered quality teaching and medical services to the plateau region.

It has been hailed a "revolution" in achieving remarkable progress in the development of Tibet's education, medical and health fields. It has also successfully rallied public support and promoted ethnic unity.

Thursday marks the 60th anniversary of democratic reform in Tibet that abolished ruthless theocracy and serfdom and established a socialist system that has seen booming economic, political, religious, cultural and social development on the plateau.

CHINA's State Council Information Office on Wednesday issued a white paper on democratic reform and the leap of development in Tibet over the past six decades.

The white paper, titled "Democratic Reform in Tibet -- Sixty Years On," lauded the democratic reform as "the greatest and most profound social transformation in the history of Tibet."

In 2018, Tibet's GDP was 147.76 billion yuan (22 billion U.S. dollars), soaring from the 1959 figure of 174 million yuan.

In old Tibet, education was largely the preserve of the privileged aristocracy. In 2018, the net enrollment rate in primary schools in Tibet was 99.5 percent, while gross enrollment rates in junior high, senior high and higher education were 99.5, 82.3 and 39.2 percent, respectively, with the per capita length of education reaching 9.55 years in the region.