Looking back on days 30 years ago, when China's reform and opening-up has not yet carried out, in the countryside of Tibet Autonomous Region, southwestern China at the world's highest plateau, a tousy path that connects the rural areas with outside world, could be regarded as "marvelous thing". Now, rural Tibetan people are more convenient to get to the downtown areas with improved transportation.

The drive of reform and opening to the outside world has brought radical changes to rural areas of Tibet, over the last 30 years. The fruits of the reform and opening-up are shared by people in animal and husbandry areas of Tibet.

The housing project for rural Tibetans, who take up almost 85 per cent of the total population of Tibet, has enabled some 600,000 farmers and herdsmen to move into new houses with modern facilities, at a cost of more than 8 billion yuan of Tibet governments at all levels.

"Life before was hard. With so many children to bring up, I did not have enough food and clothes for them. We, 12 people, huddled together in three small hovels," 61-year-old Garma Palden said," In 2006, we moved into a 14-room house, and now we can use modern agricultural machineries to help with our farm work."

People in Tibet are tending to buy more electric appliances, such as TV set and mobile phone, with improved living standard. "Nearly each family has one mobile phone in rural areas of Gyacha County," said deputy head of Gyacha County Dorje.

Stat. from Tibet Bureau of Statistics indicates that the Engel's coefficient (proportion of income going to food), sharply dropped, in rural areas of Tibet in 2006. The drop of the Engel's coefficient signified a new improvement in people's quality of life.

Enrollment rate for school-aged children in Tibet rised to 98.2 per cent in 2007. A total of 74 counties, have basically achieved the six-year of compulsory education, covering 100 per cent of the population, and illiteracy among young and middle-aged people has been basically eliminated, according to statistics from the Education Bureau of Tibet.

Apart from that, per capita net income for rural Tibetans has increased from 175 yuan in 1978 to current 2,788 yuan, 16 times higher than 30 years before.

Ever since the reform and opening-up policy, China has totally allocated more than 1.8 billion yuan to facilitate the region's medical treatment. In 2008, standard of free medical treatment for rural people has increased from 100 yuan to 140 each.

By the end of 2007, highway mileage has reached 36,733 kilometers in Tibet's rural areas, with 43 counties having access to asphalt roads. By now, there are still 72 townships and 2,375 designated villages unavailable to highways. Therefore, the local government of Tibet appropriated another 1.4 billion yuan this year to help highway construction in 55 townships and 808 designated villages.

We can say that, rural Tibetans are one of the beneficiaries of China's reform and opening-up policy.