A poverty-relief project has been launched in China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, a program funded by joint investment from China and Germany.

The project was initiated on Sunday in Kashi Region and Kirgiz Autonomous Prefecture of Kizilsu to the southern area of Xinjiang.

The German government will provide 8 million euros (US$9.6 million) for the project to help reduce poverty in the Kaxgar River area.

The project aims to assist 30,000 poor villagers living in the area by helping them adopt new water-saving technologies to water over 4,000  hectares of fruit trees.

The German government has already offered Xinjiang about US$5 million of free economic aid for building solar power plants in Hami region and Mongolia Autonomous Prefecture of Bayingolin, enabling 16,000 villagers and herdsmen to use electricity for the first time in their life.

The Sino-German financial cooperation project first started up in 1985, and by 2005, the German government had provided China with over US$1.6 billion of project funds in various fields, such as infrastructure improvement, environmental protection, tree planting and reforestation, as well as construction of industrial projects.

(Xinhua News Agency March 27, 2006)