Chinese ethnic areas see 10% GDP growth in 2013

China's ethnic regions had a combined GDP of 6.45 trillion yuan (1.06 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2013, up 10.7 percent year on year, the State Ethnic Affairs Commission said Tuesday. Chinese ethnic areas consist of eight provincial-level regions, including the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Tibet Autonomous Region, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, as well as the provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou and Qinghai. In the ethnic areas, the annual per capita net income of farmers and herdsmen reached 6,579 yuan, an increase of 13.9 percent year on year, while the per capita disposable income of urban residents was 22,699 yuan, up 10.5 percent, the commission said in a statement. Remarkable progress has been made in the ethnic regions, but overall development still lags behind, said deputy director of the commission Luo Liming, adding that their per capita GDP is only 78 percent of the national average. The commission vowed more efforts to improve people's livelihood and build a moderately prosperous society in ethnic regions.