"It is thanks to the opening-up policy. Without it, we could never have dreamed of doing what we have accomplished," he says. "It gave us the courage."

Until that point, Xigaze residents were used to rationing their needs and rarely stepped out of their comfort zone. Together with a dozen other villagers, Qunpei Tsering went into the construction business, full of expectations of a boom. They were so motivated that they sometimes carried the materials on their own backs to save time and money.

In his native Rinbung county, Qunpei Tsering's workers made the county's first cement buildings, a middle school.

When he had saved 30,000 yuan, he splurged on a fancy Jiefang truck. "It was the first time I spent that much and I felt rich," he says.

Gradually, the private business grew from building houses to highways to becoming a conglomerate.

In 2005, he became the first person in the autonomous region to make more than 100 million yuan. His businesses made more than 100 million yuan last year, employing some 1,600 people, the majority local Tibetans.

Puqiong, a senior technical worker, is one of Qunpei Tsering's staff members. "I'm earning around 10,000 yuan a month," he says. "All thanks to the company that hired me in a time of distress."

"I've always believed that small personal dreams add up to bigger ones," Qunpei Tsering says. "Unless the staff are happy with what they have got, the company will not advance."

It's this philosophy that has led him to contribute money to a project to build houses for local villagers.

"For now, the agricultural base is all that I have in mind, it's my dream," he says. "Tibet has so many specialties that should be produced in scale. Besides, that means 10,000 more jobs for people.

"For the next 20 years, I'll work on nothing else but that."