During its long years of development, the XPCC has become a mosaic of people from 37 ethnic groups, including the Han, Uygur, Kazak, Hui and Mongolian. In the reclamation areas live Muslims. Buddhists, Protestants and Catholics. The population of Muslims is over 250,000. Carrying out the Central Government's policies toward ethnic groups and religions in an all-round way, the XPCC handles religious affairs in accordance with the law, and has become a large, united, multi-ethnic family.

The development of the XPCC in the past five decades has played a very important role in accelerating the economic development of Xinjiang, promoting unity among ethnic groups, maintaining social stability, consolidating border defense, and shoring up the unification of the motherland.

X. State Support for the Development of Xinjiang

Since the founding of New China in 1949, according to the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, the Central Government has made it a basic state policy to help ethnic minorities-inhabited border areas with their political, economic and cultural development, and to lead all the ethnic groups of China onto the road to common prosperity.

Increased investment in fixed assets in Xinjiang. In the 10 five-year plans of the Central Government, infrastructure construction projects, projects involving basic agricultural development and modern industrial construction projects in Xinjiang have always been listed as key state projects. A whole slue of preferential and special policies have been adopted to ensure the smooth implementation of these plans. During the half century or more since the founding of New China, with energetic state support, investment and construction have been proceeding in a big way in Xinjiang. From 1950 to 2001, investment in fixed assets there added up to nearly 501.52 billion yuan. That included 266.22 billion yuan from the Central Government, accounting for 53.1 percent of such investment in the corresponding period. Over 90,000 projects have been completed and put into operation, including 178 large and medium-sized projects, and a batch of projects having a vital bearing on the economic development of Xinjiang. All these have laid a firm foundation for the autonomous region's sustained economic growth.

Sizable financial support for Xinjiang. Preliminary statistics show that from 1955, when the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region was founded, till 2000, the financial subsidies Xinjiang received from the Central Government totaled 87.74 billion yuan. Especially since 1996, with the increase of the Central Government's financial strength and the implementation of the western development strategy, the regular financial subsidies Xinjiang receives from the Central Government have increased year by year: 5.91 billion yuan in 1996, 6.84 billion yuan in 1997, 8.01 billion yuan in 1998,9.4 billion yuan in 1999, 11.9 billion yuan in 2000, and 18.38 billion yuan in 2001. The Central Government has also increased its fund input and support of other forms through all kinds of special financial transfer payment as well as financial transfer payment under the preferential policy for ethnic minorities.

Support for the government of the autonomous region in actively using loans from international financial organizations and foreign governments. By the end of 2001, with support from and arrangement by the Central Government, Xinjiang had completed or was in the process of undertaking 22 projects with loans from the World Bank, and the total investment had reached $1,798.95 million, or 14,931.28 million yuan according to the current exchange rate. Three Sino-foreign joint ventures have obtained approval to use $5.52 million in loans from the Asian Development Bank. Loans totaling $410.67 million from Canada and several other countries and their governmental financial organizations have been used in 68 projects in Xinjiang, some of which have been completed. Loans from international organizations and foreign governments, which have been made full use of, have played an important and positive role in Xinjiang's economic development.

Benefiting Xinjiang by exploiting petroleum and natural gas. Xinjiang is rich in petroleum and natural gas resources. Since the founding of New China, to promote Xinjiang's economic development, the Central Government has adhered to the policy of large-scale prospecting for, exploitation of and investment in petroleum and natural gas resources in Xinjiang, so as to bring benefits to people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang. To realize the strategic plan of building Xinjiang into China's largest petrochemical industry base, the Central Government had increased investment in prospecting for and exploiting petroleum and natural gas in Xinjiang year by year, in spite of the fact that the domestic and international prices of petroleum and natural gas had dropped, and the cost of prospecting for and exploiting petroleum and natural gas was high. The investment in this respect was about 18.2 billion yuan in 1995, and 29.22 billion yuan in 2000. An investment to the tune of well over 120 billion yuan is planned for the west-to-east natural gas tansmission project, which, with Xinjiang as the main source, is already under way.