Urumqi booming with social stability
Global Times
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Photo taken on September 20, 2018 shows a PV power plant in Hami, Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Xinjiang has seen a surge in the electricity generation from clean energy. With abundant wind and solar resources, Xinjiang is a pioneer in using new energy in China, with installed new-energy capacity having exceeded 27 million kilowatts so far. (Photo: Xinhua)

Urumqi, capital of Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, has so far attracted investment from 78 Fortune Global 500 companies, following supportive government policies and improved social stability of the region.

Forty-five of China's top 500 companies as well as 79 other famous enterprises have also invested in the city, Xinjiang Daily reported on Saturday. 

Most of the companies investing in Urumqi are specializing in manufacturing, new energy and new material industries, the report said.

"Xinjiang will play its economic radiation effect better in Central Asia along with the development of the Belt and Roadinitiative," Wang Dehua, head of the Institute for South and Central Asian Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, told the Global Times on Sunday. 

"It is the good and efficient business environment in Xinjiang that has enhanced our confidence and determination in investing in the region," Wang Wenyin, board chairman of the Shenzhen-based Amer International Group, was quoted as saying by the daily newspaper. 

The company has invested in an industrial park under the framework of the Belt and Road initiative and construction of the park started on September 30 in the Urumqi Economic and Technological Development Zone (Toutunhe District).

Stable society 

"It was the support from local governments and residents that made it possible for us to set up factories in Xinjiang," a director assistant surnamed Yuan from a shoe factory based in South China's Guangdong Province, told the Global Times. 

Yuan said that it was a mutually beneficial action as they could reduce production costs while helping local residents find a direction for their life, preventing them from straying toward extremism.

"To attract investment is to expand the scale of opening-up and thus to promote the economy of Xinjiang," La Disheng, a professor at the Party School of the Communist Party of China Xinjiang regional committee, told the Global Times on Sunday.

La stressed that a stable society is the prerequisite for economic development.

Wang Dehua echoed La, saying that "education is a fundamental measure to solve the problem as it prevents people from being deceived by extremism and provides them with the abilities to pursue a better life." 

The Global Times learned from company owners who invested in Xinjiang that women were once forbidden from working, when the region was heavily haunted by extremism in the past few years. 

They said some of the local women were beaten by their husbands after getting home from work, but now the situation has changed. Women now can use money they have earned to buy the clothes they like and they have higher demands for life rather than being a man's accessory. 

New strategy 

The volume of investment capital flooding into Urumqi increased from 69.4 billion yuan ($10.0 billion) in 2015 to 102.4 billion yuan ($14.7 billion) in 2017, Xinjiang Daily reported.

Newly-emerging industry in Urumqi grew 14.8 percent in the first half of 2018 and the high-tech industry grew 16.9 percent, the report said.

The high growth resulted from Urumqi government launching a new development plan focused on equipment manufacturing, new-energy and new-material industries, including the establishment of 13 industrial clusters, the report said. 

The logistics industry and export trade are expected to embrace fast development in transportation between China and Europe, Wang Dehua said.  

Wang referred to a new rail-ship route launched by China and Kazakhstan railway authorities in January. 

The 4,186 kilometer route, starting in Urumqi, quickened access between China and Central Asia, West Asia and Europe, the Xinhua News Agency reported in January.

Xue Chengxi, chief of the Urumqi railway bureau freight department, said Saturday that the annual quantity of goods shipped on the Xinjiang railway surpassed 100 million tons compared to 5,000 tons 14 years ago, the China News Service reported.