Ｘｉｎｊｉａｎｇ：Ｔｈｅ Ｆｉｒｓｔ Ｆｏｒｅｉｇｎ－ｏｗｎｅｄ Ｃｏｔｔｏｎ Ｆａｃｔｏｒｙ ｉｓ Ｏｎ ｔｈｅ Ｗａｙ

On July 16th，2007， XinjiangAilize TextileCo.Ltd， the firstexclusively foreign-owned enterprise inthe city of Shihezi，Xinjiang province，marked its firstday of productionrecently.

Owned by SaudiArabia-based textileindustry AJLANGroup， Xinjiang Ailize Textile Co， this 160 thousand spindlecotton spinning project， gains 50 million USD investmentsfrom the Saudi Arabian company， which could be helpful tospeed up the local conversion of cotton resource and promotethe upgrading of cotton production in Xinjiang obviously.According to AJLAN Group， the cooperation between AJLANGroup and the Shihezi cotton industry symbolizes its beginningof expansion in the eastern part of China.Till the June in 2008， the project couldbe finished and put into production， theproducts， focusing on top-grade pure cottonyam and PET/cotton blended yarn， mainlysupply to the further-processing textilecompanies and related garment enterprisesof AJLAN Group in China. It is estimatedthat the annual sales could reach 650 millionRMB markedly.

AJLAN Group began operationsin 1953 in Saudi Arabia as a one-shopoperation for selling men's undergarments，throbs and so on. The company turned theproduction to textiles in 1975， and then inthe 1980s it expanded its business presence when new shopswere added. Currently， AJLAN owns the biggest productionbase of Arabia headbands， robes， trousers and underwear in theworld. So far， AJLAN Group has set up five of its branches inChina， of which the products mainly market to Saudi Arabiaand other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

According to the representative of AJLAN China， with thequalified Xinjiang cotton， the new textile company in Shiheziwould become the production base of cotton yarn for thoseArabian specialized garments， which consists of a completeindustrial chain ranging from cotton planting， spinning，weaving， dyeing and printing to garment producing， and wouldrealize an real resource arrangement in international markets.

Xinjiang province， with an output of raw cotton overtwo million tons in 2006， is one of the most important cottonproduction bases in China. The city of Shihezi， on the otherhand， with an annual output of 300 thousand tons of cotton，is well-known for its export of high-grade cotton and theproduction of color cotton. During recent years， as the outputof cotton and the trade markets in Xinjiang are on the roll，several domestic large-scaled cotton groups， such as ZhejiangXiongfeng Industrial Group Co.， Ltd， HISUN Group Co.，and Huafang Group of China， began to rush into and set theirfactories in Shihezi， resulting in the production scale of cottonyarn here to reach 800 thousand spindles. Furthermore， it isestimated that， till the year 2010， the total scale of cotton yamspinning in Shihezi could rise to 1.2 - 1.5 million spindlessharply.