Xinjiang set for more growth

"Those noises won't affect Chinese entrepreneurs' enthusiasm about investing in Xinjiang, because we all know that those accusations are simply not true," said Zhang, the Tianyun Organic Agriculture chairman. "Also, no one wants to miss the best time for doing business in Xinjiang."

Zhang added that the autonomous region still needs to improve the efficiency of industrial and commercial administrative services and better assist privately owned enterprises in getting loan support.

"After the business environment in Xinjiang is further improved, it will surely attract more investment and businesses," he added.

Motivated, confident

The Xinjiang Administration for Market Regulation announced in April that, to further optimize the business environment and promote fair play, it will launch a six-month campaign to tackle behavior that abuses administrative powers to interfere with market competition.

Using administrative powers to affect the flow of goods or to treat entrepreneurs from elsewhere unfairly in the key areas of healthcare, public services and government procurement will be targeted, the administration said.

During the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period, 11 centrally administered State-owned enterprises plan to carry out 38 investment projects in Xinjiang. The total investment is expected to reach 611.7 billion yuan ($90.1 billion), according to cooperation agreements that the regional government signed with the SOEs in March.

In addition, according to the Department of Commerce of Xinjiang, during the first quarter of the year, the region attracted more than 57.97 billion yuan of investment from outside the region－an increase of more than 51 percent year-on-year. More than 80 percent of the investments were from the private sector.

While resource-rich Xinjiang's competitive energy sector of petrochemicals, coal and coal chemicals has continued to attract large investment from outside, the investment in the region's biochemical and new material sector in the first three months of the year increased more than fourfold year-on-year. Furthermore, the region's cultural and tourism sector has attracted an investment of about 2.4 billion yuan, an increase of more than 64.5 percent year-on-year, according to the department.

Abdulkayum Salam, a professor of economics at the Party School of the Communist Party of China's Xinjiang Committee, said the news about new investments has become the talk of the region.

"Measures to improve the business environment have made Xinjiang people more motivated. Furthermore, they are more confident about Xinjiang's future," Abdulkayum said.

While focusing on development, Xinjiang will continue to enforce measures to fight terrorism and extremism.

Ma, the Party chief of Xinjiang, said in an article published in People's Daily on April 21 that the region will continue to strike hard at crimes related to terrorism and extremism and will resolutely prevent the occurrence of major terrorist attacks.

Xu Guixiang, a spokesman for the regional government, said that there is still a lot to be done to eradicate the sources of terrorism and extremism.

"People may notice that some of the facilities for the purpose of maintaining stability in Xinjiang have been optimized for the convenience of the public and businesses after the social situation has become stable. However, it doesn't mean we have let our guard down," he said.