At the beginning of this year, the Water Resources Department of
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region broadcast a piece of inspiring
news: Starting from this year to 2015, both the central and
Xinjiang governments will invest 4 billion yuan (about US$480
million) in the prevention and control of the increasingly serious
soil erosion north and south of Tianshan Mountains in Xinjiang.
Some ecological preservation projects to which big sums of money
have been committed are already under construction.
With the eroded soil in Xinjiang now measured at 397,683 square
mile and with another 140 square mile of oases being taken each
year, the seriousness of the problem of soil desertification cannot
be ignored. However, if things go as planned some 10,038 square
mile of fertile land will reappear in Xinjiang in 15 years after
construction of current and planned projects to prevent and control
erosion.
Xinjiang has been offered a rare opportunity through China's
Western Development Strategy for ecological preservation: Supported
by the state, clear water from Bositeng Lake in 2002 began to be
channeled into the lower reaches of the Tarim River (the longest
river in Xinjiang). Some 515 miles of a branch of the lower reaches
of the Tarim River, which had run dry for more than 30 years, began
to flow again in November 2001.
Water conservancy projects in the north of Xinjiang in which over 6
billion yuan has been invested are under rapid construction. The
regional government has determined to develop a better ecological
environment through an economy based on low-yield crops: The goal
is to plant 500,000 acres of cotton fields with trees and grass by
the end of 2003.
In
addition, during the 10th Five-Year Plan period (2001-2005), the
total investment in fixed assets in Xinjiang will reach 420 billion
yuan (about US$50.72 billion), 60 percent of which is from state
and central enterprises.
According to the statistics, investment in the fixed assets in
Xinjiang during the 1996-2000 period was 240 billion yuan (about
US$29 billion), which was used in construction and operation of a
large number of major projects involving traffic, energy, water
conservancy, communication that have had a powerful impact on the
economic development of Xinjiang. Accomplishments of such projects
as the Lanzhou-Xinjiang double-track railway, the south Xinjiang
railway construction and its western extension and the key water
control project in Uruwati have resolved problems that had proved
bottlenecks in the economic development of Xinjiang.
In
2001, the first year of the "10th Five-Year" plan, 70.6 billion
yuan (about US$8.5 billion) was invested in fixed social assets, an
increase of 15 percent over 2000. In technical innovation and real
estate development, the increase was 23.9 percent and 65.5 percent
respectively.
The investment in fixed assets in Xinjiang this year will be 80.7
billion yuan (about US$9.74 billion), a 15.2 percent increase,
according to officials. Out of 27 planned major projects on water
conservancy, energy, traffic, telecommunications, urban
construction and environmental protection, seven projects are
expected to be completed within the year including the Keshen Power
Plant; No.314 Xiaocaohu-Toksun national road and its related
highways; east and north rings of cable telecommunications works;
sewage disposal and landscape engineering of Urumqi (provincial
capital of Xinjiang). Seven other projects will partially have been
finished and gone into operation by the end of this year including
a high-quality cotton production base, power network, prospecting
and development of three major oilfields. At the same time, no time
is being lost in the second stage of a farm-network innovation
project in rural Xinjiang. Officials hope that a network of
electrical power will be extended, where conditions allow, to
townships and that in 2002 both urban and rural areas will come to
enjoy equal access to the same power networks.
(From Xinhua
News Agency on January 28, 2002, translated by Zhang Tingting
for china.org.cn February 15, 2002))