The challenges are significant. Inefficient state factories make up 70 percent to 80 percent of the economy in the west, compared with only 40 percent in the east. Unemployment is high and growing. And millions of the region's most talented people leave every year for the east, where per capita income is twice as high, said Lin Ling, an economist with the Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences. China has sought to reverse the flow of talent by resettling large numbers of easterners in the west, but almost all have been Han Chinese, the country's dominant ethnic group, raising questions about whether the west's ethnic minorities will benefit.
Environmental activists are also worried about the western development project.
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