China has spent over 700 billion yuan (US$85.4 billion) on the development strategy for its western region, said Chinese official on Friday.

A host of major infrastructure projects, including the huge Qinghai-Tibet Railway on the "roof of the world" and the west-east natural gas pipeline project, have been launched, said Wang Zhibao, deputy director of the Office of the Leading Group under the State Council for the Development of the Western Regions.

Mainly with central government funding, 36 major projects have been launched in the western region at a cost of over 600 billion yuan from 2000 to 2002. This year, the central government plans to spend 130 billion yuan on 14 projects, he said, during a summit by Chinese financial experts and private entrepreneurs held in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province.

The western regions on the development list consist of 11 provinces and autonomous regions as well as a municipality, which have a total area of 6.85 million square kilometers and a population of 364 million. The average per capita GDP there, however, is only about 40 percent of the more developed eastern coastal regions. China launched the western development campaign in 1999.

(Xinhua News Agency August 29, 2003)