Annotation:::: The paper focuses on labour migration in mountainous Yunnan province, and analyses the factors that hinder the transfer of the surplus of labour force in ethnic areas. According to the author, the 16th report of the CPC identifies the need to transfer the rural surplus work force into non-agricultural industries in towns and cities, which demonstrates inevitable tendencies toward industrialization and modernization. Using methods of documental and ethnological study, the paper finds that compared to the areas in which the Han live in compact communities, ethnic minority areas of Yunnan are not effective in terms of the scale, speed, and outcomes of transferring the rural surplus labour force into non-agricultural industries in towns and cities. The annual average transferring ratio of labour force is now less than 10% in ethnic areas, and ethnic customs and frontier culture may be the main factors preventing the transfer of the rural surplus work force.
