TIANSHANNET

The number of tourists to northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region exceeded 150 million last year, up more than 40 percent, authorities at the ongoing session of the People's Congress of the region said Tuesday.

Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region lifted 537,000 people out of poverty last year, said regional authorities at the ongoing session of the People's Congress of the region Monday.

Sengel, a 33-year-old herdsman in Altay Prefecture in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, started traveling through inhabited mountainous regions, only with a kind of ancient fur snowboards that were used by his ancestors about 12,000 years ago.