The ongoing Urumqi Trade Fair has demonstrated the important role the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region plays in China's relations with central Asia, says Zhang Ye,a senior regional foreign trade official.

More than 80 percent of foreign business people at the fair were from Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and other central Asian countries as well as Russian central Asian areas, said Zhang, deputy director of the regional Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Department.

In the previous 11 fairs, about 60 percent of trade contracts were signed by central Asian business people.

Figures from 2002 showed the foreign trade volume of Xinjiang reached 2.69 billion US dollars, 60 percent of it with central Asian countries and Russia.

Zhang said Xinjiang and central Asia enjoyed good prospects for cooperation in oil, coal, minerals, machinery and labor.

But an official in Urumqi said the low purchasing power in central Asia limited trade growth with China.

China and the four other Shanghai Cooperation Organization countries -- Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan -- launched a joint anti-terrorism drill in Xinjiang in August.

Xinjiang wished to enhance cooperation with central Asian countries in the fight against terrorism, said Wang Lequan, secretary of the Communist Party of China Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Regional Committee.

(Xinhua News Agency September 2, 2003)