Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region registered a gross domestic product (GDP) of 21.15 billion yuan (2.55 billion US dollars) last year, a year-on-year rise of 12.2 percent, according to the regional statistics bureau.

    Last year was also the fourth straight year that Tibet recordeda GDP growth rate of more than 12 percent, the bureau said.

    The region's added industrial output value reached 4.33 billion yuan (about 523 million US dollars) last year, up 4.9 percent over that of the previous year. The added agricultural output value surged by 17.4 percent year-on-year to hit 5.76 billion yuan (about 696 million US dollars). The region's added output value of the service sector amounted to 11.06 billion yuan (1.33 billion USdollars), up 12.8 percent.

    Tibet regional government poured more than 3 billion yuan (362 million US dollars) to improve living and working conditions for local farmers and herders last year. The per capita income for local farmers and herders averaged 1,861 yuan (225.03 US dollars) last year, up 10.1 percent year-on-year.

    Tourism and Tibetan medicine also became the new growth areas of the region's economy.

    Tibet received a record 1.22 million tourists from home and abroad last year, 31.7 percent more than that for the previous year. Tourism income reached 1.532 billion yuan (about 185 millionUS dollars) last year, up 47.7 percent from the previous year.

    The output value of Tibetan medicines is expected to reach 400 million yuan (48.36 million US dollars) last year, a year-on-year rise of 20 percent.

    A source with the regional statistics bureau ascribed the rapid economic growth to the financial support given by the central government and other Chinese provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions to major infrastructure projects in the region,such as the Qinghai-Tibet railway, the first to link Tibet with the rest part of China and the Nyingchi airport.

    Tibet's fixed assets investment, which is cited as an "engine" of local economic growth, reached a record 16.84 billion yuan (2.03 billion US dollars) last year, 21.5 percent more than that for the previous year.