China to double textile jobs in cotton heartland
19/03/2014
It has deemed that investment in the sector might help to stabilise the area which has been beset by unrest in recent years.
Xinjiang is home to the Muslim Uighur people and located on the borders of central Asia; the government blames Islamist militants and separatists who want to establish an independent state called East Turkestan for the violence.
"Textiles is a labour-intensive with a long production chain. The best option is to create a large number of jobs in southern Xinjiang," Liang Yong, deputy head of a Xinjiang economic development body, told the newspaper.
More than half of China's cotton is grown in Xinjiang, much of it by a commercial arm of the country's military.
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