Xinjiang's cotton harvest has largely completed, with mechanization rate hitting 95%: local newspaper

Special: Xinjiang

The cotton harvest in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has largely completed, with above 90 percent of regional cotton having been picked, the Xinjiang Daily reported on Tuesday. 

The harvest of cotton in Xinjiang usually comes to the end of November each year. A total of 7,400 cotton harvest machines were deployed in Xinjiang this year, about 1,000 more than last year.

The mechanization rate of the entire industry chain of Xinjiang cotton is estimated to surpass 95 percent, the report said.

According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, China's cotton output in 2021 reached 5.73 million tons. Cotton produced in northwestern Xinjiang accounted for 89.5 percent of the overall harvest, coming in at 5.13 million tons. 

Experts pointed to no serious natural disasters in Xinjiang this year, in addition to the cotton planting area increasing by 1 percent year-on-year to the bumper harvest. It is likely cotton harvest may set a new high ever since 1993. 

In the first three quarters of 2022, total output value of Xinjiang's agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery sectors reached 355.13 billion yuan ($50.4 billion), a year-on-year increase of 4.1 percent. 

Summer grain output in Xinjiang stood at 6.55 million tons this year, up 2.2 percent year-on-year. The harvest for autumn grain there is also drawing to a close.