Xinjiang enters season of harvesting cash crops

Xinjiang in northwest China is entering the season to harvest its major cash crops, as sugar beets, chilly peppers, sea buckthorn and other crops are ripening in succession.

In a village of Jiashi County in the Uygur autonomous region, local farmers are using large harvesting machinery to reap sugar beets.

The county's rich resources of water, land, sunlight and heat resources plus steep temperature differences between day and night make it an ideal place to grow sugar beets.

Local authorities have promoted large-scale plantation and scientific field management to continuously improve the output. They have also built a processing industrial park, forming a more complete industrial chain and creating more job opportunities for farmers.

"We have built a circular industry chain of sugar production which has offered jobs to more than 10,000 people, and increased their income by more than 3,000 yuan (about 420 U.S. dollars) each on average," said Wang Fuli, director of the farm produce marketing service center of Jiashi County.

The more than 4,000 hectares of chilies grown in Wensu County of Xinjiang's Aksu Prefecture are also set to have a bumper harvest. Large piles of red hot peppers being dried on ground have attracted buyers from Sichuan, Shaanxi and Shandong provinces, far away from Xinjiang.

"The chili peppers here have a good color value, with desirable degree of dryness and quality. And there are hydraulic packers just on the sunning ground, which facilitates truck transportation," said Zhao Wenbing, a purchaser.

In Yanchi Town of Yiwu County, stretches of sea buckthorn woods are full of orange fruits, signaling another bumper harvest.

The town has cultivated 1,600 hectares of sea buckthorns, and one sixth of them have borne fruits. With forestry and fruit plantation and processing companies introduced here, the region has formed an integrated development mode covering seedling, planting, field management, harvesting, product research and development, processing and marketing, increasing incomes for more than 2,000 households of farmers and herdsmen every year.

Xinjiang enters season of harvesting cash crops

Xinjiang enters season of harvesting cash crops

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in China reported a steady improvement in business performance in October, with expanding domestic and foreign trade markets and growing confidence in development, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

In the first 10 months, the added value of China's industrial SMEs above a designated size increased by 7.0 percent year on year.

The added value of 39 out of 41 major industries maintained growth, which strongly supported the steady growth of China's industrial economy.

The SMEs production index reached 50.7 percent in October, staying in the expansion range for a sixth consecutive month. A production index above 50 indicates expansion, while a reading below 50 reflects contraction.

According to the ministry, sales of textiles and clothing, grain, oil and food, furniture, and home appliances in the domestic market rebounded significantly in October.

Thanks to efforts made on expanding overseas market, the export index of SMEs in China reached 51.9 percent in October, up 0.3 percentage points from the previous month, remaining positive for a seventh consecutive month, said the ministry.

"The package of incremental policies has gradually showed its effect. Multiple indicators on production and sales have improved in October. However, we also see that there are more uncertainties in the external environment, which requires us to further increase our support and service efforts," said Liang Zhifeng, director of the SME bureau at the MIIT.

The ministry said that China will continue to improve the public service system for SMEs, and continue services like financing promotion and digital transformation, in a bid to effectively help enterprises reduce costs, improve quality, and increase efficiency.

SMEs in China report steady improvement in business performance in October