Zhang Qingli has been appointed the secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) committee of the Tibet Autonomous Region, the CPC Central Committee announced in Beijing Monday.

Yang Chuantang, Zhang's predecessor, will be moved to other position, the CPC Central Committee said.

Zhang, now 55, was made the acting secretary of Tibet's CPC committee in November 2005.

According to official records, Zhang, a native of Dongping, Shandong Province, was born in January 1951. He was admitted into the CPC in February 1973.

Zhang had worked in Dongping until January 1979, when he left his hometown as a deputy chief of Dongping's county committee of the CPC, and was then moved to Beijing to take over the position of a department vice head of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Youth League (CCYL).

In 1986, he left the CCYL Central Committee and returned to Shandong to assume the office of vice mayor of Dongying City and deputy secretary of the city's CPC committee.

Zhang got a series of promotions in Shandong until August 1998, when Zhang moved to Gansu Province, where he held a number of important jobs including the head of the publicity department of the provincial CPC committee and Party chief of Lanzhou, the provincial capital.

Between October 1999-March 2005, Zhang held, early or later, a series of key positions in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, such as the commander of the paramilitary Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), deputy secretary of the CPC committee of the XPCC, deputy secretary of the CPC committee of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and vice chairman of the People's Government of Xinjiang.

He is member of the 16th CPC Central Committee and deputy of the 10th National People's Congress.

(Xinhua News Agency May 31, 2006)