The Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China has planned to set up a 20 billion yuan (about US$ 3.2 billion) fund to support the textile and apparel industry in the province. This was disclosed by Yan Qin, deputy secretary-general of the Xinjiang regional government at a press conference in Beijing, reports Xinhua.
The fund would form part of a package aimed at increasing jobs and incomes of people and maintain social stability in the province. A portion of the fund would be contributed by the Central Government and the remaining amount would be raised by the regional government.
The fund would prefer those textile industries that are being set up in the southern areas of Xinjiang, and clothing and tapestry units in those areas would enjoy low or no rents for a certain period. In addition, the government would also open vocational and language training centres in southern Xinjiang.
Yan Qin also disclosed that Xinjiang government would subsidize domestic cotton and electricity in approved textile industrial parks. The regions would adopt strict environmental protection standards and keep a check on energy consumption.
A 10-year textile development plan for Xinjiang aims to create 420,000 jobs with an industrial production value of about 86 billion yuan by 2018. The plan projects these values to grow to 1 million jobs and output value to 212.5 billion yuan by the end of the ten-year period in 2023.
Xinjiang produces more than half of the raw cotton produced in China, but local farmers are at a disadvantage as most of the textile mills are located in eastern China, far from Xinjiang in northwestern part of the country.
