Up to 200,000 farmers and herdsmen in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region currently living in inhospitable areas will move to areas more fit for people within the next decade.

That was the message from Hao Yidong, vice-chairman of the government of the autonomous region, at a working conference on poverty alleviation held in Hohhot, capital of the region.

"This is the only way to getting rid of poverty while protecting the ecology at the same time," said Hao.

Over the past seven years, with the help of local government, a total of 2.7 million people in the region have become less impoverished.

But there are still 800,000 people living below the poverty line. About 200,000 people are living in areas with extremely adverse environment and ecology and are frequently hit by natural disasters such as droughts and sandstorms.

To make a living, they keep exploiting the poor natural environment, thus creating a vicious circle. Up to 60 percent of the land in Inner Mongolia has been affected by desertification.

The relocation program initiated in 1998 has so far benefited about 100,000 people.

The development planning commission of Inner Mongolia, which is in charge of the program, has set out long-term plans to relocate another 450,000 people in addition to the 100,000 people involved in the program.

Currently in the autonomous region 31 counties are listed as the nation's poverty-stricken ones.

Most emigrants will move only within their own prefecture or league - a prefectural level administrative unit.

New emigrants will either move to other towns or establish their own settlements.

The relocation will be conducted on a voluntary basis, according to the commission.

According to Li Chonghe, an official from the commission's agriculture administration department, the whole relocation program will need as much as 6.6 billion yuan (US$798 million).

Li predicted the central government will put aside 3.3 billion yuan (US$399 million), with the remaining half of the money coming from local government and the emigrants themselves.

Earlier this year, the government of the autonomous region issued a circular calling for the relocation program to be speeded up and providing relevant preferential policies for emigrants.

The relocation program has got strong support from farmers and herdsmen.

Over the past year, about 7,000 people have moved of their own accord.

(China Daily 07/19/2001)