Catalog

ADB is playing a key role in helping the PRC Government create strategies to accelerate the development of its western region, which is home to at least half of the country’s very poor.

Socioeconomic indicators for the region, such as rates of school enrollment and access to rural health services, roads, electricity, and water supply, are below national levels.

The western region also faces severe ecological problems. It includes 95% of the country’s total area affected by land degradation.

A recent ADB study on PRC 2020 concluded that the continued investment in infrastructure, environment improvement, and human resource development in the western region must be accompanied by reforms in the fiscal transfer and financial systems.

ADB’s economic and sector work program includes policy-oriented studies on Foreign Capital Utilization in the Western Region, Western Region Human Resources Development, Environmental Management in the Western Region, and Urban Environmental Improvement.

During 2002–2004, ADB will allocate 70% of its proposed lending program to the inland provinces, particularly those in the western region. Such projects include

• road development in Southern Sichuan, western Yunnan, Shanxi, Ningxia, Guangxi and Hunan

• reducing the pollution of the PRC's rivers by financing wastewater treatment plants

• railway construction in Hubei-Chongqing (Yichang-Wanzhou) and Zhongwei-Taiyuan (Shanxi)

• urban road development in Xi’an City

• clean energy development in Gansu

• the Northwest Grid Super High Voltage Transmission

ADB is also developing projects aimed at addressing land degradation for potential cofinancing with the Global Environment Facility. In addition, ADB will continue to promote regional cooperation activities between PRC’s western provinces, Yunnan and Xinjiang, and countries in the Greater Mekong Subregion and Central Asia.

ADB has a full-time team in the PRC engaged in country programming, strategy formulation, economic and sector work, policy dialogue, and project preparation and implementation. Its Resident Mission, based in Beijing, has a staff of 28 and is headed by Canadian Bruce Murray.

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