What are the achievements of the Western Development Program?

The main achievements are as follows:

1. Improvement of major infrastructure conditions such as transportation, water conservancy, energy, and communications. In the past five years, 60 new key projects have been started in the western region, with a total investment scale of approximately 850 billion yuan. In terms of transportation trunk line construction, 91,000 kilometers of new highways have been opened to traffic in the past five years, including 5,600 kilometers of expressways; 4,066.5 kilometers of new railway tracks have been built, 2,819.6 kilometers of new railway lines have been completed and put into operation, 1,653.6 kilometers of double tracks, and 1,831.3 kilometers of electrified railways; the Qinghai-Tibet Railway has laid a total of 777 tracks kilometers; 22 trunk airports and regional airports have been built, and 16 projects are under construction. The West-East Power Transmission Project has a total installed capacity of more than 36 million kilowatts and more than 13,300 kilometers of power transmission and transformation lines. The construction of an additional 10 million kilowatt power grid to Guangdong was completed one year ahead of schedule. It has constructed a number of large-scale water conservancy projects such as Zipingpu in Sichuan, Shapotou in Ningxia, Baise in Guangxi, and Nilji in Inner Mongolia. 115 irrigation areas were renovated, 535 water-saving demonstration projects were built, and 621 dangerous reservoirs were repaired and reinforced.

2. Rural production and living conditions have been further improved. A total of 7.1 billion yuan of investment has been arranged in the past five years, solving the drinking water problem of 32 million people in the west. The state invested 4.6 billion yuan to implement ecological migration for 1.02 million poor people living in areas with fragile ecological environments and without basic living conditions. Arrange 1 billion yuan for the construction of biogas digesters for 960,000 rural households. The problem of electrification in 969 villages without electricity was solved, and radio and television were connected to 68,000 administrative villages.

3. Ecological construction has been significantly strengthened. By the end of last year, the project had completed the conversion of 118 million acres of steep slope farmland into forests and 170 million acres of barren hills and wasteland. Since 2003, the project of returning grazing to grassland (reviving grassland through methods such as grazing ban, rest grazing, rotational grazing, and pasture fencing) has been implemented, and a total of 190 million acres of seriously degraded grassland have been managed. Projects such as natural forest protection, Beijing-Tianjin sandstorm source control project, water pollution control in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and central city pollution control are progressing relatively smoothly.

4. The pace of development of social undertakings has accelerated. In terms of education, the state has invested a total of more than 15 billion yuan to support education in the western region, especially rural compulsory education. Invest 6.5 billion yuan to strengthen the construction of public health facilities in rural western areas.

5. The development of characteristic industries is accelerating, and East-West cooperation is in the ascendant. In the past five years, industries such as electricity, coal, oil and gas, non-ferrous metals, cotton, animal husbandry, and tourism, as well as some equipment manufacturing and high-tech industries in the western region have accelerated their development and have occupied an increasingly important position in the national market. The western region has absorbed more than 9 billion U.S. dollars in foreign direct investment in the past five years. More than 10,000 companies from the eastern region have invested and started businesses in the western region, with a total investment scale of more than 300 billion yuan.

6. Effectively stimulate domestic demand. The development of the western region and the construction of key projects require a large amount of equipment, materials, technology and talents, providing a broad market space and a large number of investment opportunities for enterprises in the eastern and central regions to "expand westward". The eastern and central region is also the direct beneficiary of a large number of key western development projects such as West-to-East Gas Transmission, West-to-East Electricity Transmission, Transportation Arterial Lines, Conversion of Farmland to Forests, Natural Forest Protection, and Beijing-Tianjin Sandstorm Source Control.