Foreign trade business

During that period, trade volume between Xinjiang and Kazakhstan hit $1.4 billion, a year-on-year growth of 47.7 percent. Xinjiang saw a growth of 170 percent in its trade volume with Russia, and 56.5 percent with Uzbekistan.

Cross-border RMB settlement in Xinjiang has exceeded 260 billion yuan ($41 billion) since the region launched the business in 2010.

By January 2018, Xinjiang had conducted cross-border RMB settlement with 90 countries and regions. More than 2,500 companies in China have settled 261 billion yuan worth of cross-border trade over the past seven years, according to the Urumqi branch of the People's Bank of China.

With the promotion of the Belt and Road Initiative, Xinjiang, an important commercial hub along the Silk Road Economic Belt, has seen its trade with Central Asian countries flourish. The initiative provides support for the expanded use of RMB in cross-border trade.

In 2017, the actual settlement volume of cross-border RMB in Xinjiang rose by 45.6 percent to 37.8 billion yuan, accounting for 37 percent of the region’s cross-border transactions.