Northwest China's Qinghai Province plans to build 25,000 settlements for herding families this year as the government continues to work to improve the life of the herding community, Vice Governor Deng Bentai said Saturday.
The provincial government has said it would spend nearly 6 billion yuan (about 923 million U.S. dollars) in five years to settle 134,000 herding families, mostly Tibetans, in safe and comfortable homes.
More than 46,000 settlements have been built since the project started in 2009, with the purpose of helping nomadic people in the province settle down in permanent homes, Deng said. Four thousand others are currently under construction.
Qinghai, located on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, is home to China's largest Tibetan community outside of the Tibet Autonomous Region. Many Tibetan herding families have limited income and live in poor conditions.
