Farmers practise a ritual to express their gratitude to the happy life in Quxu County, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, on January 20, 2007. [Xinhua]

Farmer Gesang of the Tibetan ethnic group harvests wheat in Caigongtang Township of Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, on August 23, 2008. Tibet has seen its GDP soar from 174 million yuan (US$25.44 million) in 1959 to 39.591 billion yuan (US$5.79 billion) in 2008, with an annual growth rate of 8.9 percent on the average, according to the white paper titled "Fifty Years of Democratic Reform in Tibet" released on March 2, 2009 by the Information Office of the State Council, or China's Cabinet. [Xinhua]