This year marks the 60th anniversary of the peaceful liberation of Tibet. Before the liberation, there was no modern industry in Tibet. But now the region has more than 20 modern industry sectors with distinctive local features.

For decades, agriculture, especially animal husbandry, accounted for most of Tibet's economic output. In recent years, with infrastructural developments in the region's transportation and power sectors, industry has become a key part of local economic growth. Last year, Tibet's total industrial output reached 16.3 billion yuan for an annual growth rate of more than 14 percent.

Zhu Taizhong, Deputy Director of the Tibetan Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, says Tibet has to limit the number of projects that generate high levels of pollution and have high energy-consumption levels to protect the region's fragile ecological environment.

This is why sectors with distinctive local features such as the manufacture of folk handicrafts have become an important part of local industrial development. Both the Central Government and the regional government have also adopted a series of preferential policies to support these industries.

"The Central Government established a special fund for small- and medium-sized enterprises in the Tibetan region, with an allocation of 70.5 million yuan last year. The regional government has now also set up a similar fund with an annual allocation of 200 million yuan."

For established sectors such as Tibetan medicine, textiles and mineral water, Zhu says the regional government is encouraging more well-known brands. By now, some specialty products, such as Lhasa barley beer, "5100 Tibet Glacier Spring Water" and Ganlu traditional Tibetan medicine, have entered the market in other parts of the country as well as the international market.

Zhu adds that to keep expanding these competitive industries with local features, local governments in Tibet have set up industrial parks across the region, each with its own specialty. 
"There are now more than 200 enterprises in the Lhasa National Economic and Technological Development Zone. Some counties like Dagze and Quxu have also established their own industrial parks. We are now ordering each park to develop a specialty, such as food processing, folk handicrafts and Tibetan medicine."

Zhu also points out that although local living standards have greatly improved along with rapid economic development during the past 60 years, Tibet still lags far behind other parts of the country. He believes the only solution is for the autonomous region to develop industries, especially competitive sectors with local features.