Adhering to Chairman Mao's　national policy, the Chinese Government has devoted special care to help speed up socialist construction in the Tibet Autonomous Region. Since 1960, the bulk of the region's budgetary needs has been financed or subsidized by the government and 30 per cent of its grain supply provided by the central authorities.

Through land rent, usury, corvees as well as miscellaneous levies, the three manorial lords--the reactionary local government, the feudal monasteries and the nobility--cruelly exploited the Tibetan people and pocketed 70-80 per cent of the wealth produced by the labouring people. This barbarous feudal serfdom seriously undermined Tibet's economy and the serfs lived in dire poverty.

In 1959, the Chinese Communist Party led the Tibetan people in overthrowing feudal serfdom and carrying out democratic reform. The state has implemented a light tax policy there. Taxes have accounted for only 8.4 per cent of the region's revenue since 1960, and over 85 per cent of the industrial and commercial taxes have been paid by state-run enterprises.

The tax in the rural and pastoral areas is fixed even when production increases. Farm output has risen considerably over the past decade while the agricultural tax has dropped from 6.7 per cent of the farm output in 1961 to its present 4.5 per cent.

Even such a light tax collected by the state from the people is used in their interests. As a matter of fact, the money used to help Tibetan people build up their region far exceeds the taxes collected there. The state investment to help Tibet build water conservancy projects, develop culture and education and improve public health, farming, animal husbandry and social welfare since 1960 is four times the amount of all taxes paid.

To promote agriculture and animal husbandry in Tibet, the state has advanced large amounts in loans over the last 14 years. At the same time it has raised the purchasing price of farm and animal products by 30 to 60 per cent and reduced sales prices of insecticide, chemical fertilizer, farm tool, kerosene and salt by 30 to 75 per cent. The average price for various brands of tea, a must for the Tibetan people, now is 60 per cent lower than in 1954.

With help from the state, the Tibetan people have developed the local economy in the spirit of self-reliance and hard struggle. Great changes have taken place in the autonomous region where people's communes have been set up in more than 70 per cent of the townships. Total grain output and total number of cattle last year were double the figures before the democratic reform. Where there was not a single factory in Tibet before liberation, today hundreds of small and medium-sized industrial enterprises have been set up. They include hydroelectric stations, farm implements and cement works, tanneries and woollen mills, motor car repair and assembly factories, timber mills and coal mines. Great progress has also been made in transport and communications, culture and education and public health.

The people's living standards have improved by a big margin. Since the democratic reform they have enjoyed free medical treatment and　the population has been increasing. Many emancipated serfs now have　bank deposits.

(This article appears on page 19. No. 26, 1974)