URUMQI - In 2018, close to 7 billion yuan ($1 billion) will be allocated from the central finance to help battle poverty in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

According to the regional finance department, more than 4 billion yuan will go to poverty relief causes, while about 760 million yuan will be specially used for development related to ethnic minorities. About 2 billion yuan will be used to employ local residents in government-funded projects, while the rest will flow to state farms and forests.

From 2011 to 2015, more than 1.7 million residents in Xinjiang were lifted out of poverty, according to government figures.

About 1.2 million impoverished people in the region will be helped out of poverty by 2020, most of them in southern Xinjiang, where a poor living environment, insufficient infrastructure and a lack of public services have resulted in a big number of people living in poverty.