Xinjiang invests heavily to improve life of border people

URUMQI - Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has poured over 600 million yuan ($88.8 million) this year to improve the living conditions of people at border area as part of the region's poverty alleviation efforts.

The fund has been used to subsidize border residents and frontier guardians, improve the ecology of the border area, and build or upgrade their living facilities, such as kitchens, toilets and biogas pits, said an official with the regional poverty alleviation office.

Since June, the region has tripled the frontier guardian subsidy to 800 yuan at plain area and 1,000 yuan at plateau area. It has built 20,000 biogas pits and renovated 30,000 toilets, 24,000 kitchens, 70,000 yards for poverty-stricken households and increased a grassland area of 5,800 hectares in recent years at border area.

Xinjiang has China's longest boundary line. Half of the region's 34 border counties and cities are under the poverty line. Thanks to government efforts, 265,000 border people shook off poverty from 2014 to 2015, however, there are still 560,000 people living under poverty line at Xinjiang's border area as of the end of 2015.