Trade & Invest in Xinjiang

1.Chinese State Council has approved the Xinjiang Shihezi Economic and Technological Development Zone as a state economic and technological development zone,according to Xinhua News Agency.Located in the suburbs of the city of Shihezi, this is the second state economic and technological development zone in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The first one is the Urumqi Economic and Technological Development Zone.Experts say that the State Council's approval represents an important step in the implementation of China's strategy for the greater development of western China.The zone will focus on development of high technology enterprises in the coming years and will speed up the development of state farms in Xinjiang.Set up in 1992, the Shihezi zone occupies 11.2 sq. km. and is home to 160 enterprises, and last year, its foreign trade value reached 13 million U.S. dollars.China now has some 40 state-level economic and technological development zones, most of them in the eastern region.

2.Xinjiang will open nine key mining areas to overseas investors for financially risky exploration.They are located in Tarim, Junggar, Turpan, Hami and Ili basins, and southern parts of Tianshan Mountain and Altay and Altun mountains.About 50 large ore deposits are to be located in the areas over the next 15 years. The region has 68 kinds of mineral resources. The probable reserves of copper and sylvine are 5 million tons and 350 million tons respectively.The Ministry of Land and Resources will allocate 60 million yuan in each of the next five years for prospecting mineral resources in Xinjiang.According to preferential policies granted by the regional government, foreign investors will be exempted from paying resource tax in the first five years of operation.

3.International network technology enterprises including Intel, Sybase, IBM,Cisco, Oracle,Compaq,Chinaepot built an international famous IT enterprises ally supporting information construction of Xinjiang. The international ally will take the advantages of technology, product, human resources and funds to promote and plan the construction and development of informatization of Xinjiang. At the same time, it will help to develop professionals, technicians and managers.

4.The second pivotal telecom project of Wulumuqi capital of Xinjian Uygur Autonomous Region has passed the inspection on Sep 15. �0�3�0�3 This project is listed in 95 plan key projects and was constructed from the end of 1995. On April 12 1996, it was formally constructed. On December 22 1996, the entire project passed the initial inspection. The total architecture dimension is 71344 square kilometers and the total investment is 331.5 million RMB. The project has wide coverage, large scale and high intelligence. It is unexampled in telecom construction history of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. After the project is completed, second pivotal telecom of Wulumuqi will install modern communications equipment such as long-distance switching equipment, microwave communications, data communications, satellite communications, multimedia communicaitons and optical fiber communications. And it will improve greatly the communications capacity of Xinjiang telecom network and further boost the level of Xinjiang telecom technology

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