The economic growth rate of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region is set to reach a record high of 13.8 percent in 2007, a top regional official said.

The gross domestic product of Tibet would reach 34.2 billion yuan (US$4.6 billion) this year, said Zhang Qingli, secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Regional Committee of the Communist Party of China.

It would also be the seventh consecutive year the region has maintained an annual economic growth rate of 12 percent or more, Zhang said at a recent economic work conference of the region.

The per-capita net income of farmers and herders in Tibet was also expected to hit 2,788 yuan (US$378) this year, a year-on-year increase of 14.5 percent, the official said. Nationally, the per-capita net income of farmers was 3,587 (US$487) last year.

"The living standards of rural residents in the region have been raised to a well-off level on the whole," Zhang said. "Tibet has entered a historical jumping-off point in building an all-round well-off society."

Farmers and herders accounted for 80 percent of the 2.7 million population in Tibet.

Improved infrastructure, such as access to the railway that started operation in July last year, has boosted the region's growth in a number of sectors such as investment and tourism.

This year, the region has 180 projects planned at a total investment of 77 billion yuan. The projects, mostly invested by the central government, would further drive the region's economic and social development, according to the conference.

(Xinhua News Agency December 23, 2007)