Urumqi to hold TV expo next week

A Sino-Russian TV documentary expo will begin in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, from June 6.

The expo, which is jointly hosted by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television and the local government, is part of ongoing Sino-Russian media exchanges.

Xinjiang Television and Russia Today, a Russian international TV network, will respectively bring 10 documentaries to reflect each side's culture and ordinary peoples' lives, Yang Hongxin, head of Xinjiang Television, a main organizer, told reporters in Beijing on Friday.

"Documentaries play irreplaceable roles in cross-border communication as records of social, economic and cultural developments in different regions," Yang says.

"The expo will promote cooperation in the humanities between the two sides."

He says Stories in North, a TV documentary reflecting relations between China and Russia through the daily lives of people in Xinjiang, will be a highlight of the expo. The documentary's interviewees include students from Xinjiang studying in Moscow, a baker of Russian origin in Xinjiang and a sports fan who rafts on the Irtysh River that originates in Xinjiang and flows into Russia's Ob.

People of the Russian ethnic group make up one of 12 major non-Han groups in Xinjiang, a hub of ethnic diversity in China.

Yang says that a TV forum that gathers delegates from China, Russia, and central and western Asian countries will also be held in Urumqi on June 7.

An industry alliance is likely to be established during the forum to provide a long-term system for more cooperation, including coproductions of documentaries and information sharing.

Xinjiang Television now runs branch stations in some countries in the region, including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkey. A branch station in Russia may be on the horizon.

"After the Belt and Road Initiative was launched, Xinjiang has played an important role creating new channels of communication between China and the countries involved," says Yan Chengsheng, an official in charge of international cooperation under the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.

Xinjiang has natural landscapes and human resources－elements needed for good documentary production, he adds.