On May, 19, 3 days before Tibet’s 60 anniversary of peaceful liberation, Padma Cholin, Chairman of the People's Government of the Tibet Autonomous Region delivery a speech in a press conference to introduce and summarize the achievements Tibet has made over the past 60 years.

He highly praised the astonishing changes Tibet has witness and experienced in many areas including political reform, social progress, people’s living conditions and especially, the economic increase.
It has that the local GDP in Tibet increased from only 129 million yuan in 1951 to 50.746 billion yuan in 2010, up nearly 111.8-fold at the comparable prices. Especially since 1994 when the central government held the third working conference on Tibet, Tibet has witnessed two-digit growth in its gross local production for successive 18 years with an annual growth hitting 12.9 percent. During the 11th Five-Year Plan period from 2006 to 2010, the local GDP in Tibet successively spanned three great steps of 30 billion yuan, 40 billion yuan and 50 billion yuan. Industries with regional features witness rapid development. Many distinctive products such as the Lhasa Highland Barley-Brewed Beer, 5100 Mineral Water and Ganlu Tibetan Traditional Medicine are available at the domestic and international market. Tourism industry maintains rapid growth. In 2010, the autonomous region received a total of 6.85 million tourists with total tourism revenue hitting 7.14 billion yuan.

The central government’s constantly increased investment in Tibet is another driving force for the area’s economic boom. Since the Peaceful Liberation, the central government and the the people of the entire country has been providing meticulous and solid supports in every step of Tibet’s development and progress. In the past 60 years, the central government did not take a penny from Tibet; on the contrary, it constantly increases its transfer payment to Tibet. The direct investment from the central government has exceeded 160 billion yuan. From 1952 to 2010, the central government provided 300 billion yuan of financial subsidies to Tibet with annual increase of 22.4 percent. Since 1980, the central government has held five conferences on the work of Tibet, formulated a series of special and preferential policies for the autonomous region and mobilized 18 provinces and municipalities, more than 60 ministries and commission of the central government and 17 central government-led enterprises to conduct one-to-one assistance. From 1994 to 2010, these provinces and municipalities, central government agencies and central government-led enterprises have assisted 4,393 projects of economic and social construction in Tibet in six batches with the total investment of 13.3 billion yuan. A total of 4742 excellent cadres have been selected to assist Tibet.

The central government’s commitmented help to Tibet facilitated many batches of important constructions such as 43-project construction, 62-project construction, 117-project construction and 188-project construction in Tibet, greatly improving the basic infrastructure there.

Now, a comprehensive traffic and transportation system consisting of highways, railways, airlines and pipelines has been established in the autonomous region. In 2010, the mileage of highway open to traffic throughout the region reached 58,200 km, almost connecting all the towns. Qinghai-Tibet Railway was completed and put into service, putting an end to the history that Tibet had no railway. Lhasa-Shigatse railway is under construction. The airport arrangement with Lhasa Gonggar Airport as the trunk line and Qamdo Bangda Airport, Nyingchi Minling Airport, Ngari Kunsha Airport and Shigatse Airport as the branch lines has taken shape.

Another area that benefit greatly from central investment is energy sector. Before liberation, Tibet was in serious shortage of energy and had only a small power plant with install capacity of 125 kw that generated power intermittently only for the nobles. In the past six decades, Tibet witnessed rapid development in power generation, forming the new type of energy system relying mainly on hydropower while making geothermal energy, wind power and solar energy subsidiary. In 2010, the total installed capacity of power stations in Tibet reached 974 mw, benefiting nearly 2.38 million people, or 82 percent of the population in the Autonomous Region.

In a word, the fast growing Tibet economy further proved that the Tibet Autonomous Region, an inalienable part of China, a land with promise, home to 300 million Tibetans, is now marching toward a bright future.