Shigatse, the second-biggest city of Southwest China's Tibet autonomous region, has witnessed tremendous social and economic changes over the past 60 years, thanks to the region's democratic reform, according to the Shigatse City Government.

Based on official statistics released by the Shigatse City Government, the city's gross regional production in 2018 was more than 24.3 billion yuan ($3.5 billion), an increase of 593 times over that of 1959.

The city's total fixed-asset investments exceeded 17.7 billion yuan in 2018, which is 26,000 times larger than that of 1959.

The general public budget revenue in 2018 was more than 1.75 billion yuan, 2,282 times that of 1959.

Urban and rural per capita disposable income exceeded 32,989 yuan and 10,216 yuan in 2018, respectively.

The region received more than 6.9 million domestic and overseas tourists in 2018, with the city's travel revenue reaching more than 5.5 billion yuan.

As one of the region's main battlegrounds for poverty alleviation, the city had 42,400 impoverished households and 169,600 impoverished people, and the poverty rate was more than 25.3 percent in 2016.

Thanks to efforts made over the past three years, the city has seen reductions in the impoverished population to the current 34,800, impoverished villages to 516, impoverished counties to six, and the poverty rate to 5.1 percent.

With a land area of more than 182,000 square kilometers and an average altitude of 4,000 meters, Shigatse has a population of 850,000, and it is known as Tibet's Granary and China's important channel to South Asia.