2010-07-02 14:06

KASHGAR, Xinjiang - For more than a thousand years, camel cavarans carrying silk, jade and porcelain from inland Chinese towns lined the vast deserts in China's far-flung western region.

Chinese, Central Asian traders who crossed the daunting mountain range with loads of saffron and rugs converged at Kashgar, an oasis town east of the Taklamakan Desert and a trading hub along the ancient Silk Road that connected China to Europe.

The route, however, faded into history with the rise of maritime trade in the 15th Century. Since then, Kashgar, along with many Silk Road stops in what is now the ethnic Uygur-populated Xinjiang region, has been left in the dust as the economy elsewhere in China took off.

But the authorities hope that is about to change.

With China's central government planning to ramp up growth in Xinjiang, Kashgar has a good chance of catching up, officials and analysts said.

Authorities aim to restore southwest Xinjiang, near the borders of Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan, where Kashgar is located, as a transport and trading hub.

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"The prosperity of the Silk Road trade will be gradually restored," said Wang Ning, an economist with the Academy of Social Sciences in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. "For a long time, inadequate infrastructure and transportation hindered the region's development."

To open the doors to investment, China's civil aviation authorities have ordered domestic airlines to launch services between Xinjiang and China's larger cities and economic boomtowns.

By 2015, Xinjiang will have six new airports, bringing the total in the sprawling region, covering 1.66 million square km, to 22, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

Authorities are also in talks with overseas counterparts to launch new flight routes linking Urumqi, Xinjiang's capital, to Istanbul, Dubai, Samarkand in Uzbekistan, Yekaterinburg in Russia, and Tbilisi in Georgia.

On the ground, the rail network will be increased from 3,599 km to more than 12,000 km by 2020, an investment of 310 billion yuan, estimates the Ministry of Railways. Lines linking Xinjiang with Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan are also in the plan.

Another 120 billion to 140 billion yuan will be spent to overhaul Xinjiang's roads, including 7,155 km of highways.

Wang said the development of Xinjiang would speed up the political, economic, and cultural exchanges between China and Central Asian states and contribute to regional prosperity and stability.

Local governments around the country are expected to pour about 10 billion yuan (US$ 1.5 billion ) into Xinjiang in coming years.

Security observers said growth in Xinjiang, especially southern Xinjiang, which has a lower GDP and higher unemployment rate, could prevent recurrences of violence such as the riots last year, and give Xinjiang an edge in fighting terrorists from across its western border.

On July 5 last year, Urumqi was rocked by a deadly riot that left 197 people dead and more than 1,700 injured. Overseas separatists and extremists were blamed for inciting the violence.

After restoring order, the central government decided to ramp up economic support to Xinjiang for it to achieve "leapfrog development."

"It is a major and urgent task of strategic significance for us to boost the economic and social development of Xinjiang to achieve lasting stability in the region," President Hu Jintao told a high-level meeting held by the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee on April 23.