Incidental objectives include ending the social service role of state enterprises, attracting private entrepreneurs from outside Tibet, and continuing to plan to build a railway into central Tibet.
Urban incomes are now over five times the size of rural incomes, and growing at twice the rate.
Price rises were kept down during 1996, but the report gave no figures for unemployment or inflation last year. The report, which was published in the Tibetan papers on 29th May, was issued in translation by the BBC Summary of World Broadcasts in June. There are fewer than usual references to the pastoral economy, but the number of animals owned by herders will be controlled and the slaughter rate increased, according to the TAR authorities, who regard excessive herd size as the main cause of economic sluggishness and of grassland degradation on the Tibetan plateau. The report makes no commitment to provide free medical care or education, effectively disbanded in China. The focus of industrialisation in Tibet is on developing mining.