URUMQI - A far western region which started the reform of China's resource tax last year is expected to earn 5 billion yuan ($787 million) from energy explorers this year, enabling the local government to provide better public services, according to local officials.

The resource tax income in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region reached 2.67 billion yuan in the first six months of this year, six times the amount earned in the first half of last year, local taxation officials said Wednesday.

Resource-rich Xinjiang was allowed to start levying a 5 percent tax on the value of sales of oil and gas from the region in June last year. The resource tax income in the second half of 2010 hit 2.16 billion yuan, rising 450 times from a year earlier.

The tax reform was expanded to all provinces and regions in China this year. The list of taxable resources was widened to include coal, rare earth, salt and metal from Nov 1, 2011, according to the revised resource tax regulations.

"The government now has more financial resources to boost people's living standards and protect the environment -- the two areas where the extra income mostly went to," said Xian Fujun, an official with Xinjiang regional government's taxation bureau.

Xinjiang holds about 20.08 billion tons of oil reserves, or 30 percent of the country's total reserves, and 10.3 trillion cubic meters of gas, or 34 percent of the country's total reserves, official statistics show. But economic development had been slow in the past due to limited local government income and lack of investment.

In Baicheng, an ethnic Uygur-dominated county in Xinjiang, resource tax revenue reached 183 million yuan in the second half of 2010, accounting for 56 percent of the total government income, said Sun Zhiyong, head of the finance bureau of the county government.

With the extra income, Baicheng has pushed forward the subsidized housing project, set up free bilingual classes, and provided training for farmers to sell their farm produce to other parts of the country, he said.

Baicheng farmer Maihemuti Toheti said, after learning basic Mandarin Chinese in the program, he is more confident to sell grapes to dealers outside Xinjiang and he may also consider setting up farm storage in big cities such as Lanzhou in neighboring Gansu province or Chengdu in the far southwestern Sichuan province.