Last Wednesday, journalists with National Net Media's Tourism in Xinjiang were invited to visit the Urumqi Economic and Technological Development Zone (Toutunhe District). The comprehensive multi-functional area, comprising 3600 registered enterprises, showed journalists a vibrant industrial scene with its production lines continuously on the go.

The Urumqi Economic and Technological Development Zone was founded in 1992 and listed as a state-level economic development zone two years later. Toutunhe District was established in 1961 to serve as a major industrial base in Urumqi,. The linking of the two districts in 2011 made the development zone enter a brand new stage, the UETD guide said.

The grouping of both aimed to develop a new economic platform that faces central Asia; the integrated park covers a planned area of 480 square kilometers and includes an economic and technological development zone, export processing and administrative zone, a corporate cooperative area and an economic cooperative zone. UETD has also integrated with the Xinjiang Science and Technology Innovation Park, Xinjiang Software Park and Xinjiang Returned Overseas Students Pioneer Park in order to realize various new functions, according to the guide's introduction.

With many renowned automobile manufacturing groups building workshops in UETD, the construction of a so-called motor city is on the cards as well. After Shanghai Volkswagen launched several projects in the area, other corporations such as China National Heavy Duty Truck Group Corp. Ltd., Shaanxi Automobile Group Corp. Ltd. and Dongfeng Motor Corporation, all followed suit. Those projects brought about output values amounting to billions of yuan annually, the spokesman said.

Journalists visited the assembly lines of Shaanxi Automobile Group Corp. Ltd., Xinjiang Branch. Assembling a heavy vehicle includes 213 working procedures and sees the combining of 4000 spare parts, according to Tian Zhihua, the factory's general manager. The number of vehicles assembled in the workshop is set around 15 per day, he added. All the workers were focused on operating the machinery equipment and many finished heavy vehicles could be seen lined up outside the workshop.

From January, 2010 to April, 2012, the total contract value of UETD reached a massive 75.1 billion yuan, with 14 of the projects crossing the 1 billion yuan line each. Foreign capital amounted to 280 million ($44,072,000) yuan, according to the statistics released by authorities.

UETD now awaits investments in several fields, ranging from machinery and equipment manufacturing to the medicine production industry, with metallurgy, wind power and food processing being backbones. UETD will certainly continue to play a leading role in the industrialization and economic development of Xinjiang Autonomous Region.

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