Famous food street in northwest China's Xinjiang improves services to attract tourists

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠A popular food street in Urumqi, the capital city of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, has gone viral for its authentic Xinjiang cuisine so far this summer.

The Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has a vast territory, a multi-ethnic population, and a delectable cuisine. Almost every Xinjiang dish can be found at the food street. With its affordable prices and authentic taste, it's been the hottest food street on social media since last year. 

"We are from Foshan, Guangdong Province. We followed the guide on social media to this street. The food here is very delicious," said a tourist. 

Delicious food is the magic magnet here. Merchants from Hotan in southern Xinjiang have settled here since the 1960s, bringing their local cuisine with them. The street is named after the city. This community has also become a paradise for local foodies, who come from more than 20 Chinese ethnic groups, such as Uyghur, Kazakh, Hui and Han. 

"We are five brothers, we're from Hotan. Our beef and mutton are freshly delivered from northern Xinjiang every morning. We only provide the highest quality food for everyone," said Aysajan, a restaurant owner.

Tourism in Xinjiang has soared in recent years. In the first half of this year, Xinjiang received more than 11 million tourist visits, an increase of 16 percent year on year. The huge number of tourist visits has also stretched the resources of this ordinary residential area. Community workers have set up service stations to provide water, medical kits, AEDs (automated external defibrillators) and so on to tourists. 

"Hotan Street is only 600 meters long, has 192 shops. Now we are restricting vehicles from 12 in the morning to 12 noon, and we arranged six restrooms especially for tourists," said Sun Yingying, community Communist Party committee secretary of Hotan Street.

"We have become very popular since March last year. We originally made lamb barbecue buns, but tourists prefer beef, so we changed to beef. We haven't raised prices ever and will not in the future," said Alpha, a restaurant owner.

Xinjiang has lots of hidden treasures for tourism. The sudden wave brought by social media is also pushing the local government to continuously improve services for tourists, and keeping up the vitality of the tourism economy. 

Famous food street in northwest China's Xinjiang improves services to attract tourists

The onshore Chinese currency renminbi, or the yuan, strengthened to below 7.10 against the U.S. dollar in August.

In August, the weighted average rate on new corporate loans registered around 3.6 percent, a decline of over 0.2 percentage points from an already relatively low benchmark in 2023.

This indicates that China has continued to lower the overall financing costs and is encouraging financial institutions to pass on profits to the real economy.

The RMB exchange rate has seen an appreciation. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, has retreated from its peak since August, decreasing from above 104 to below 101, marking a new low in over a year with a decline of about 3 percent.

The onshore RMB exchange rate against the U.S. dollar has strengthened from a high point of 7.27 yuan in mid-July to below 7.10 yuan, a cumulative appreciation of 2 percent.

Cross-border funds continued to flow into the Chinese domestic market, maintaining a net increase trend. In August, overseas investors increased their net holdings of domestic bonds by approximately 17 billion U.S. dollars, marking the 12th consecutive month of net inflows.

Onshore Chinese yuan strengthens against USD in Aug