"All ethnic groups are equal," The region's Chairman Yang Jing, told China Daily.

"Closer national fusion has decreed that the Han nationality cannot live without the minority groups, and vice versa.

"And minority groups cannot live without each other either."

Up to a fifth of the region's almost 24 million population are of an ethnic minority background. The autonomous region is given considerable support from Beijing.

The Inner Mongolia autonomous government was established on May 1, 1947, and was the first of the country's five such regions.

Autonomous areas exercise self-government in accordance with the Law of China's Regional National Autonomy, implemented in 1984.

Since 1991, China has formulated more than 20 regulations on regional national autonomy and some special regulations.

Yang said the local minority population had benefited from such laws and regulations, the majority of which were designed to specifically help ethnic groups.