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Beijing Review Exclusive
Special> Xinjiang Blossoming> Beijing Review Exclusive
UPDATED: October 11, 2008 NO. 42 OCT. 16, 2008
The Promising Land
Rich resources and multiple economic patterns are vitalizing the vast rural region of Xinjiang
By JING XIAOLEI
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Tianshan Mountain, a part of the Himalayan orogenic belt, divides Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region into three parts: the north, south and east.

Now in the harvest season, the region is turned into a bountiful land of green grapes, red jujubes and white cotton.

Rising exports

Hundreds of large transportation vehicles, forklift trucks and farm locomotives line the Horgos land border port in Huicheng County in Aksu Prefecture, loaded with agricultural products for export.

The north border of Xinjiang has eight first-grade land ports at the national level, of which Horgos is the largest. It reached a cargo transportation volume of 432,000 tons and achieved a trade income of $1 billion in 2006, up 29 percent and 130 percent respectively over 2002. Statistics also show that in the first half of 2008 trade income had already exceeded $900 million.

Xinjiang's exports amounted to $11.503 billion, while imports turned out to be $2.213 billion in 2007. Most of the overall import/export volume in Xinjiang was directed to and from Kazakhstan through the Ala Pass, which is China's only port that has access to railway, road and pipe transportation.

Agricultural products and daily necessities were among the most popular exports. The goods exported via Taicheng land port have been expanded to eight major categories and 36 varieties.

"We have been invited to hold five agricultural product fairs, and each time our hundreds of tons of vegetables were snapped up immediately," said Ding Jiaosheng, an official with the regional economy and trade affairs bureau in Tacheng. Currently in the region, there are eight companies exporting fruits and vegetables, and their export volumes have been rising steadily.

Thanks to the area's land ports, almost half of the fiscal revenue of Bortala Mongol Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang has come from exports in recent years. Over the past three years the local government has earmarked 30 million yuan ($4.2 million) to improve housing conditions for 30,000 farmers.

Quality agriculture

Thanks to long, sunny days and big temperature differences between day and night, Xinjiang has abundant light and heat resources, suitable for growing crops, so fruits and other agricultural products from the region are of high quality.

Xinjiang has large, fertile and concentrated farmland, which is convenient for gravity irrigation and large-scale cultivation. Irrigated areas have been extensively developed and there are dozens distributed in the north and south of the Tianshan Mountain.

There are other advantages for developing agriculture in Xinjiang. It is a vast land with a low population density, relatively few industrial enterprises within irrigated areas and comparatively little pollution, which results in agricultural products that are natural and tasty.

In the past, investors were deterred from investing in the region's south, the largest of its three geographical parts, because of poor infrastructure. In recent years, a number of large projects including transportation, telecommunications, water and power facilities have been constructed with support from the Central Government, making a big improvement in the investment environment.

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