The cotton output in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the country's largest cotton manufacturing base, is expected to grow 11 percent year-on-year to reach a record of 2.18 million tons this year, a local official has said.

Xinjiang will sow cotton on 1.24 million hectares of land this year, an increase of 95,000 hectares more than last year, Ismail Tiliwaldi, chairman of the regional government, told an ongoing government meeting.

Xinjiang, which has led the nation in cotton output for the past 14 straight years, manufactured 1.95 million tons of cotton last year, one third of the country's total, local agriculture authorities said.

To improve the competitiveness of Xinjiang's cotton industry, the Chinese central government will allocate 750 million yuan (US$93.75 million) over the next five years to expand the region's cotton output capacity, agriculture authorities said.

The growing cotton industry has created temporary job opportunities for people from other parts of China such as Gansu, Sichuan, Henan and Shaanxi provinces, according to the Xinjiang Regional Trade Union Federation.

About 750,000 people arrived in Xinjiang to pick cotton over the past two months. They will earn an estimated 1.5 billion yuan, said Zhang Jingyi, vice chairman of the federation.

(Xinhua News Agency November 2, 2006)