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People Urged to Plunge into the Wave of Xinjiang's Development
Following are excerpts of the second report written by Our Staff Reporters Chen Feiyu and Yan Quanxing on what they see and hear during their tour of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region
The vast and mysterious Xinjiang is one of China's resources-rich provinces and regions. The region covers an area of 1.028 billion mu (15 mu = one hectare) of land suitable for agriculture, forestry and animal husbandry, accounting for one-10th of such land nationwide. The annual volume of freshwater resources is about 110 billion cubic meters, equivalent to three times that of Shandong Province. Its volumes of petroleum and natural gas resources make up 30 percent and 34 percent respectively of onshore petroleum and natural gas resources, the estimated volume of coal resources stands at 2,190 billion tons, representing 40 percent of the national total. In addition, it enjoys a favorable geographical location and unique tourist resources.
Today when humankind has entered the society of knowledge-based economy and information, in the face of a tremendous region with great development potential, how should we go about the development? And how do local people think and act?
Viewing the World with Wider Vision
The Seminar on the Large-scale Development of the Western Region and the Strategy for Xinjiang's Economic Development was held in Urumqi last August jointly by the autonomous regional people's government and the Development Research Center of the State Council. To deal specifically with a number of questions regarding the external environment for western region development, the development of key areas in the western region and urban and rural economic restructuring, a group of experts and scholars with the Development Research Center under the State Council put forward their extremely valuable opinions and suggestions which will help Xinjiang further improve its strategic plan for the large-scale development.
Over the past few years, group after group of experts and scholars have come to Xinjiang, leaving behind profound enlightenment and inspiration; meanwhile, group after group of Xinjiang people have gone to visit Guangdong and Shandong provinces, Shanghai Municipality and some other places. Through the visit they have come to see their own shortfall. Further change has taken place in their conception..
Hami Prefecture in the east of Xinjiang is rich in coal, gold, iron ore, stone, copper, nickel and other mineral resources. As regards the question of how to make better and more effective use of the resources advantages to boost a quicker economic development, secretary of the Hami prefecture Party committee Qian Zhi is of the opinion that natural resources are extremely important. Today, brand, trademark, patent, information, market network and innovative environment have become very important artificial resources, only with the possession of sufficient artificial resources advantages, can natural resource advantages manifest themselves. He said that in this round of massive development, the traditional conception of resources and development must be changed as quickly as possible, otherwise, one will never be able to keep pace with the external development.
In the early period of their development, many places in southeast coastal regions lacked money and talents, but before long, these two resources poured into those places, then why can't we here in Xinjiang bestowed with rich resources develop our hometown, the locals asked themselves. A profound reflection of such topics has sparked discussions among people of upper and lower levels in Aksu Prefecture. They came to the conclusion that the biggest problem lies in their lagging in reform of the management mechanism and management system. Aksu prefecture Party committee secretary Hou Chang'an said with deep feeling when he quoted Comrade Deng Xiaoping's remark that there would be no way out without reform, that meant we are required to reform the old system and create a set of management systems which make it possible to make effective combined use of limited funds and outstanding talents. With this kind of system, we can get the money and personnel we want; without it, we will finally lose all the money and personnel we have.
Speeding Up Construction of a Micro Environment
At the end of March this year, a piece of news about a certain place in Chongqing was released by Xinhuan News Agency. The leading figure in the news, entitled "A Copy of Government Summary of Minutes Frightens Away Eastern Investors", felt that the large-scale development of the western region requires the use of a more favorable investment environment and a wider opening market to construct a large international economic arena. The matter wakes up Xinjiang people and leave them in deep thought and has thus accelerated the process of reforming the investment environment.
In June this year, the Urumqi city government first abrogated 53 documents concerning urban construction, public security, labor and personnel, that hinder the large-scale development of the western region
Later, Urumqi City further changed the policy on permanent residence and took the lead among western region cities to introduce a preferential policy for attracting outstanding talents to come to work in the city. .During the period, 15 prefectures and cities of Xinjiang also went into action to accelerate the pace of reforming old rules and regulations unfavorable to the large-scale development, so as to provide a good administrative and legal environment for local economic development.
A story was heard in the ancient city of Karsh, which says that in May this year a sales clerk with the "Jili" Group in Zhejiang Province came to Karsh bringing with him the order of the Group's decision-makers. He investigated the investment environment and sought cooperative partners.
The mistake in the working procedures of the sales clerk had led to the 12 vehicles coming for the sales exhibition being detained by the prefectural administration for industry and commerce, making the situation between the two sides very tense. Having learned of the matter, officials of the prefecture government immediately went to the spot to handle the matter, and the problem was solved satisfactorily. Seeing the sincere efforts made by the Karsh Party and government leaders in constructing a favorable investment environment, the "Jili" Group decided, in light of market demands, to invest 350 million yuan in Karsh to set up a new generation of production line producing farm machines and auto parts for agricultural purpose.
In Miquan City of the Hui Autonomous Prefecture of Changji, an investor from Dongguan City of Guangdong Province came to Miquan City to invest 50 million yuan for the establishment of a rehabilitation hospital which needed a plot of land for its construction. .According to procedures, the land-use formalities were fulfilled in a little over 10 days, which, in the past, would take three to five months or even one year. According to Ma Dehua, secretary of the administrative bureau Party committee of the city's new and high-tech development zone, the power transformer factory and five other investment projects involving an investment of 50 million yuan made by Tianjin have currently gone into operation, of the city's 30-odd investment projects, 10 have been put into effect. He said such a rapid pace was inconceivable without improvement in the investment environment.
In late August, Xinjiang published the document, entitled "Some Policy-related Regulations of the Autonomous Region on Encouraging Foreign Investment". This set of Regulations has, in the aspect of investing in industry, expanded the comprehensive development of agriculture, forestry and animal husbandry, the water conservancy, energy and communications infrastructure construction, as well as the scope and field of ecological environment, construction of small cities and towns and high value-added light industries. Besides a series of preferential policies, this set of Regulations clearly states that the region has simplified the examination and approval procedures for registration.
The Ambitious Plan for Xinjiang's Development Being Carried Out
Since the Party Central Committee put forward the strategy for the large-scale western region development in June last year, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Party committee and people's government, after conducting a series of investigations and studies, set forth the market-oriented superior resources-conversion strategy for the massive western region development and, on the premise of further accelerating infrastructure construction in the fields of water conservancy, transportation, telecommunications, power grids and urban construction, took economic restructuring as the focus of current work to develop a feature economy and transform resource advantage into economic advantage.
The blueprint leading to the new century has been launched. Investments worth 120 billion yuan have been made in the first phase of major projects, construction of the 4,000-km "west-east" gas transmission project extending from Lunnan of Tarim to Shanghai is expected to be started next year. The prospecting for the railway running from Jinghe to Yining and then to Huoerguosi Port has been completed. Construction of the high-grade highway running from Xiaocaohu to Toksun has started. The first phased work for a large batch of water conservancy projects including the Dashixia Project has started.
The most pressing work of economic restructuring is under way. The structure involves seven key industries-textile, chemical, light, machine-building and three other industries. In line with the basic principle of reducing aggregate and giving prominence to features, the autonomous region put forward 67 technical renovation projects for the purpose of removing the barrier between trades and regions, so as to realize optimization of structure, upgrading industries and enhancing the overall quality and competitiveness of the trade. The principle for regional balanced development has been broken. Xinjiang will first develop the northern slope economic belt stretching from Urumqi in the east to Tianshan in Usu City. This region, with developed communications and rich resources, has possessed a rather developed foundation with its economic aggregate accounting for half of Xinjiang's total. It is currently a region with the most dynamic and the greatest potential for development in Xinjiang.
In the face of the unprecedented opportunity for development, the various prefectures and cities have been engaged in serious thinking and full discussion and proof, giving themselves an accurate positioning. Based on the Hualing Group and the Xinjiang commercial and trade center, Urumqi is striving to turn itself into a modern international commercial and trade city. Turpan Prefecture has come to grips with the growing of grape and developing tourist industry with a view to building Turpan into a modern tourist area. The Hui Autonomous Prefecture of Changji, focused on the development of agriculture, devotes its major efforts to building 10 production bases for the planting of cotton, sugarcanes, oil crops, melons and vegetables, constructing nine major industrial chains to speed up the pace of managing agriculture in the way of managing industry. .Hotan Prefecture put ecological environment construction in the first place, planning to plant 1 million mu of grass, 1 million mu of economic forests and 1 million mu of food grain and cotton.
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