HUANGPU SHANGHAI

URUMQI -- Rizwangul Mutali proudly describes the changes in her township. "We have new roads built right to our doorsteps, as well as schools, clinics and cultural squares," she says.

Rizwangul Mutali is head of Daryaboyi Township, located in the hinterland of the Taklimakan Desert in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. The villagers within the township used to live close to the desert, where the weather is windy for seven months every year, the air often filled with sand. The land there was barren, with low agricultural output, and the local people had poor living conditions.

These days, however, things have improved for the villagers. Thanks to the local government's relocation project for poverty alleviation, they have moved to a new area, about 110 km from their previous homes. The local environment is better, and they have running water, electricity and internet access.

"To help our villagers increase their incomes, the government has led them to set up breeding cooperatives and develop desert tourism, making their lives increasingly prosperous," Rizwangul Mutali says.

Xinjiang put an end to absolute poverty at the end of 2020. Last year, the per capita disposable income of rural residents in areas of Xinjiang that shook off poverty hit 14,798 yuan (about $2,210), an increase of 12.1 percent over the previous year.

Nurela Usimen, a woman in the city of Atux who was formerly unemployed, participated in a government-sponsored study tour to eastern coastal Shandong and southern Guangdong provinces in 2020. After returning from the tour, she set up a housekeeping services company with 150,000 yuan of poverty alleviation funds.

Over the past two years, the company's business has expanded to more than 20 service items, such as cleaning and babysitting, providing stable jobs for more than 80 people.

With the continuous strengthening of the protection of women's rights and interests, women in Xinjiang are playing an increasingly important role in various fields, and their social and family status has significantly improved.

In 2019, the number of newly employed women in the region's urban areas accounted for 47.4 percent of the total newly employed in urban areas.

Over the past decade, Xinjiang has also made great efforts to develop the education sector and ensure that people of all ethnic groups benefit from educational advancement in the region.

In 2020, the gross enrollment rate of preschool institutions and senior high schools reached 98.2 percent and 98.9 percent, respectively, according to a white paper titled "Respecting and Protecting the Rights of All Ethnic Groups in Xinjiang."

Meanwhile, the region has taken proactive measures to build itself into a core area of the Silk Road Economic Belt. Much progress has been made, with the region opening up wider, thanks to the Belt and Road Initiative.

In 2021, a total of 3 billion yuan was invested in construction projects for the Urumqi International Land Port Area. Xinjiang's foreign trade reached around 52 billion yuan in the first four months of this year, up 33.7 percent year on year, according to local customs.

Xinjiang's development progress can also be seen in its growing transport infrastructure. June will see the opening of the Hotan-Ruoqiang Railway, an important regional railway included in the national medium- and long-term railway network plan.

With its opening, several counties in southern Xinjiang will be connected to the rail network for the first time, a significant step to promoting local economic and social development.