The "Holy Garze into Beijing, Sichuan's Garze Tibetan Areas Cultural Tourism Week" is launched in the Cultural Palace of Nationalities, Beijing, Jun. 5 and will last for one week. [Photo/China Tibet Online]

Beijing audience will be much more familiar with the Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan Province because of the "Holy Garze into Beijing, Sichuan's Garze Tibetan Areas Cultural Tourism Week" which was launched in the Cultural Palace of Nationalities, Beijing, Jun. 5 and it will last for one week.

The cultural tourism week presents people numerous of photos and explanatory notes to introduce Garze, a beautiful place located in western Sichuan Province and southeast of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. It is populated by 43 nationalities and has a population of 1.12 million. Renowned as the "last Shangri-La", Garze is the first special minority nationalities autonomous prefecture in China, covering 153 thousand square kilometers, and including 18 counties as well as 325 townships.

Garze possesses a beautiful ecological environment and rich natural resources. About 97.1 percent of the state's land is covered by natural pasture and forest, therefore, the place is an important water conservation in the upper Yangtze River and the first line of ecological barrier. Garze is one of the places in the world that owns most complete natural ecology, climate perpendicular band spectrum and vertical distribution of animal and plant resources. It is rich in ecological resources, cultural tourism resources, water power resources, mineral resources, and biological resources. It owns a prominent comparative advantage, broad prospects for development, and outstanding advantage of backwardness in the economic field.

Garze boasts many tourist attractions of world level, such as Gongkar Snow Mountain, Daocheng Yading, and Conch Gully. It is also a region rich in cultural resources, some of which are world-renowned, including the Love Song in Tardo, King Gesar, and ancient books in Derge Gonchen Monastery. It enjoys the fame as the "snow area cultural treasure" and "ocean of song and dance".

In recent years, the people's government of Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture has established the development strategy focusing on ecology, industry, science and education, rule of law as well as moral construction. In 2013, the state had achieved a regional GDP totaled 20.1 billion yuan (about 3.2 billion U.S. dollars), 21,418 yuan (about 3429 U.S. dollars) of urban per capita disposable income, and 5,435 yuan (about 870 U.S. dollars)of per capita net income of farmers.

The "Holy Garze into Beijing, Sichuan's Garze Tibetan Areas Cultural Tourism Week" is launched in the Cultural Palace of Nationalities, Beijing, Jun. 5 and will last for one week. [Photo/China Tibet Online]

Publicity and education

The prefecture sets up "horse literature advocacy teams" to put on 4,675 performance, 59,180 lectures, 56,274 reading activities and 28 speeches of prisoners for 5.362 million villagers. In addition, over 190 programs of entertainment have been created, benefiting 1.8 million person-times. Therefore, the national consciousness, citizen consciousness, consciousness of rule of law, gratitude, and unity consciousness have been promoted in the masses of all nationalities in Garze.

Happiness Projects

The prefecture has invested a total of 5.697 billion yuan (about 0.91 billion U.S. dollars) to implement ten happiness projects including comfortable housing, labor income, financial aid, education, health care, culture sharing, rural development, transportation convenient, and newly demonstrative villages. The problems including housing problem for 27,000 farmers and herdsmen, water problem for 191,900 people and power problem for 70,000 people have been solved effectively. The masses of all nationalities could share the fruits of reform and development.

Counterpart support

Altogether 51,700 civil servants of the prefecture have been helping 211,000 farmers and herdsmen and 364 families to solve difficulties, resolve disputes, provide a wide range of technical guidance and carry out the service of agricultural production.

An audience is watching the photo exhibition. The "Holy Garze into Beijing, Sichuan's Garze Tibetan Areas Cultural Tourism Week" is launched in the Cultural Palace of Nationalities, Beijing, Jun. 5 and will last for one week. [Photo/China Tibet Online]

Religious protection

Altogether 1,690 officials of the whole prefecture keep in touch with 529 temples (churches) and religious circles, collecting 2,250 suggestions and holding 6,178 lectures in Garze. Officials of all levels help the religious groups to solve problems actively.

Social concern

Up to now, a total of 2,681 orphans, 2,671 elderly people of no family and people with living difficulties, 8,000 households enjoying the five guarantees and 19,000 disabled people have been helped by the local government and officials. Moreover, 50.2902 million yuan (about 8 million U.S. dollars) for charity have been raised from the two terms of "Garze Charity Day"Activity. The vulnerable groups in Garze receive much more love and concern.

Aiding Garze

With the help of provincial party committee and provincial government, 10 districts and counties of Chengdu City and three cities including Yibin, Leshan as well as Luzhou of Sichuan Province give partner assistance to 15 counties of Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. So far, accumulatively 804 cadres have been sent to aid Garze, supporting the 357 construction aid projects on six aspects of infrastructure, industrial development, livelihood improvement, power construction, public service and ecological construction, and attracting a total investment of 892.7941 million yuan (about 142.9 million U.S. dollars).At the same time, Zhejiang Province and Garze have implemented a collaboration for poverty alleviation.

With its own efforts and help from other cities, Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture will continue a rapid development with unprecedented confidence and energy.

The "Holy Garze into Beijing, Sichuan's Garze Tibetan Areas Cultural Tourism Week" is launched in the Cultural Palace of Nationalities, Beijing, Jun. 5 and will last for one week. [Photo/China Tibet Online]