Four enterprises in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, northwest China, have jointly invested 420 million yuan to sponsor a corporation that will develop sylvite resource in Lop Nur in the eastern Tarim Basin.

Preparations are already completed, according to a local official. The corporation will have a production capacity of 200, 000 tons of potassium sulfate and 30,000 tons of potassium nitrate

by next year.

Sylvite, a raw material for producing potash fertilizer, is urgently needed in China, as the country now spends a great deal of foreign exchange to import potash fertilizer every year.

At present, Lop Nur's proven reserves of sylvite are 250 million tons.

Lop Nur, covering an area of 10,000 square kilometers, is expected to become China's largest sylvite and potash fertilizer production base.