Authorities plan to spend up to 800 billion yuan (HK$746 billion) before 2000 to develop natural resources in the central-western region.
Xinhua yesterday quoted a strategic report from an 'authoritative' department which said 600 billion to 800 billion yuan had been allocated to be invested in the region by that date.
'Such capital will be invested in more than 200 key projects, and counts for 43 per cent of the total approved for major projects in the country,' it said.
Officials responsible for the plan said the goal was to turn the central-western region into a supporting base for the country's primary industries in the 21st century.
'Leaders have ordered that control measures must be taken so that wealth discrepancy between the western and eastern regions should no longer widen by the end of this century,' officials said.
The discrepancy should then narrow before 2010, officials said.
