URUMQI, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region plans to build 300,000 houses for impoverished people in the region this year, the regional housing and construction department announced on Thursday.

About 210,000 of the houses, measuring 40 to 60 square meters each, will be used to help families living in extreme poverty, those receiving the minimum living allowance, and households with disabled residents, according to Li Xuedong, head of the department.

The remaining houses will be open for other low-income families to apply for, Li said.

The regional government has built 2.1 million such houses to help lift households out of poverty from 2011 to 2017. It pledged to build enough new houses to cover all underprivileged households in rural areas.

Xinjiang has received central government funding of 27.07 billion yuan (about 4.29 billion U.S. dollars) to improve people's livelihoods this year. Of the total, 2.29 billion yuan will be used to finance construction of new houses and renovation of unsafe homes in rural areas.