At the CCP CC Politburo meeting on May 26, 2014 to discuss the worsening security crisis in Xinjiang, a series of steps were approved. These included the decision to enlarge the role and operations of China’s  Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (PCC), known as the Bingtuan, which was established in 1954. The Xinjiang PCC comprises 2.68 million people and are largely ex-PLA personnel who received incentives to settle in the Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region. The Xinjiang PCC is the biggest single employer and landowner in the region and controls about a third of all the Han population and one-third of the region’s arable land. Its GDP in 2013 was just under 200 billion yuan (US$32.40 billion) or 24 per cent of the Autonomous Region’s total. It owns 174 collective farms; 4,391 industrial, construction and communications companies; and at least 15 labour reform camps. It reports directly to Beijing.