This report is written by Our Staff Reporter Zhu Qian on the brave advance of Xinjiang which gives full play to its role as a bridgehead of the western region of the motherland and works hard to build itself into a foreign trade center. The report reads in full as follows.

Basing themselves on reality and giving play to Xinjiang's advantage as a bridgehead of the Eurasian continental bridge, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region'sParty committee and government are determined to build a large, first-rate market, and gradually enable the region to become a foreign trade center from which to export domestic commodities and bring in foreign goods.

Since the second Eurasian continental bridge was opened to traffic in 1992, Xinjiang has become the bridgehead of the western region of the motherland. The geographical environment, climatic conditions, mineral resources and ground products of Central and West Asian countries are approximately close to and even same as those of Xinjiang, so the complementarity between Xinjiang and these countries is small. There was once the view that imports were Xinjiang's needed commodities brought in from Central and West Asia and exports were only Xinjiang's products delivered out of the gate of the western region. As a result, import and export trade was inactive and only on a small scale, the proportion of Xinjiang products on the Central Asian market was less than 5 percent. In the region's 15 state-class ports, the import and export volume was only a little over US$1.5 billion in 1998, averaging US$0.1 billion each.

How to give full play to Xinjiang's role as a bridgehead of the Eurasian continental bridge? Leaders of the autonomous regional Party committee and government saw the prospect of this strategic concept from their investigation and study conducted in the Hualing Building Materials market. The site of this market, which covers an area of 200,000 square meters, is provided by the Hualing Group. The market solicits clients from across the world. It deals mainly in building materials and concurrently in other goods. Of the more than 2,200 households of clients it solicited, 95 percent were inland factories. The market, which is visited by 100,000 customers and 7,000 vehicles per day, has provided jobs for more than 10,000 people, and boosted the development of Xinjiang's building materials enterprises. Last year, this market paid more than 40 million yuan of taxes to the State. Over the past few years, the construction materials of Hualing Market have streamed into Astana, the new capital of Kazakhstan, now under construction. Clearly, Xinjiang enjoys a very advantageous location for the export of its products to Central and West Asia. Xinjiang provides the market, a good environment and preferential policies, allowing commodities from the strongly complementary inland and coastal areas and even Southeast Asian countries into the cities of Xianjiang, exporting from Xianjiang and importing commodities from Eastern and Western Europe, then, it will play an ever-bigger role as an economic tie and a bridgehead of the Eurasian continental bridge. This being the case, Xinjiang has adopted the following few measures: First, setting about to investigate the capacity of the Central Asian market for Chinese commodities, so as to organize the supply of goods. In the frontier hotel, a client from Kazakhstan had just finished performing the procedures for a truck of light industrial goods to leave the customs house. He said gleefully: Today's Chinese goods are good, cheap and perfectly packed, and are therefore well received by the Kazakhstan public. Second, it has standardized the division of labor of Urumqi's existing second-class ports, for example, Hualing Market deals mainly in building materials, the commercial trade center deals mainly in small commodities, the frontier hotel exclusively manages the export of light industrial products, the economic development zone meets the demand of the high-stratum people for high-grade commodities. The Guanghuo Business Center designated for selling high-quality commodities in the economic development zone has been completed and will be put into operation. The region will also set up business centers one after another for selling Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing and Hong Kong goods, as well as goods from the Republic of Korea, thus providing customers with sites for their selective purchases of high-quality commodities. In the Hualing Market, this reporter saw a client from Zhejiang Province who applied to Mi Enhua, the general manager of the Hualing Group, for buying or leasing a stall. The general manager said helplessly, "I've vacated my garage to make room for the clients. At present, more than 60 households have paid and are waiting for their stalls, and more than 200 households have registered and are urging us for the booths. Third, in Changji, Keshe and Kuerle, Xinjiang has stepped up the construction of second-class ports and reporting to the higher level for approval. It has accelerated the construction of second-class ports, uses the products imported by Urumqi to radiate northsouth Xinjiang, and the ground products of northsouth Xinjiang to nourish Urumqi. Fourth, improving land communications. The Alatau Pass has taken the lead to have the Beijiang Railway Company open double-decked tourist coaches. The coach which departures in the morning can arrive in Urumqi in the evening. Kazakhstan and Russian business people who came by car for the first time said gladly, "with convenient traffic, we can save money and time, and can travel frequently to make more money". Tracks of the Nanjiang Railway have been laid up to Keshe. When it is opened at the end of this year, it will run through east and west along the northern fringe of the Taklamagan desert. The Turpan-Urumqi and Dahuangshan high-class highway has been put into opeation, the Rurumqi-Kuitun Expressway will be put into use next year. Fifth, in regard to policy "convoy", relevant preferential policies have been formulated.

At present, Xinjiang is grasping re-education in the updating of concepts for the purpose of enabling Xinjiang people to have a broader mind, wider field of vision and greater tolerance. On the basis of existing specialized markets, the region will build various types of other specialized markets to attract business people across the world and to take hold of special products of the world, so that they can contend in beauty and fascination in Xinjiang. They can thus provide sites, services and intermediary for delivering inland commodities out of the western region. In this way, clients from Central and West Asia need not take the trouble of traveling a long way to buy things in the inland areas, instead, they can take the delivery of goods in Xinjiang at a much shorter distance, and thus can get various brand-name, fine-quality and special Chinese products. Inland Chinese clients need not perform the procedures of going abroad, they can get Central and West Asian as well as European brand-name, high-quality and special products in Xinjiang.