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Xinjiang enters cotton harvest season with higher yield expected

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Xinjiang enters cotton harvest season with higher yield expected

2024-10-16 01:53 Last Updated At:02:17

With the beginning of the cotton harvest season, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is anticipating higher yields from advancements in agricultural technology and mechanization.

Xinjiang is the largest production area of high-quality commodity cotton in China. The 2.47-million-hectare cotton growing area in the region has produced more than 5 million tons of cotton for six consecutive years.

The northern and southern parts of the vast autonomous region have different climates, different cotton varieties and also different growing periods. Currently, cotton picking started two weeks ago in northern Xinjiang, while the harvesting has just begun in the southern areas.

In Tumxuk City, located in southern Xinjiang, cotton farmers are using all-in-one harvesters to help them pick cotton, separate the flowers from the stalks and pack them into bundles.

"In the past, we picked the cotton manually. It took us more than a month to pick 100 mu (6.67 hectares) of cotton, and the cost reached 1,000 yuan per mu (about 2,106 U.S. dollars per hectare). Now, we use domestically produced cotton pickers to gather them, which have high efficiency and low cost. It now takes less than a day to harvest my 100 mu of cotton, with a cost less than 200 yuan per mu," said Turaxun Samat, a local farmer.

This year, Xinjiang has vigorously promoted the new cotton planting technology of drip irrigation under the mulching film at the appropriate emergence temperature, replacing the old method of irrigating before sowing. The technology can greatly improve the emergence rate while also saving water resources.

In addition, the precision sowing supported by BeiDou Navigation Satellite System and remote sensing monitoring by the agricultural big data platform have also been widely adopted across Xinjiang, contributing to the growth of cotton output.

"This year, a total of 1,057,800 mu (about 70,520 hectares) of cotton have been planted in Tumxuk City, and the unginned cotton yield is estimated at 451.4 kilograms per mu, an average increase of 11.7 kilograms per mu over the previous year," said Chen Yongsen, a member of the leadership of the city's Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

The cotton harvesting in Xinjiang is expected to end in early November.

Xinjiang enters cotton harvest season with higher yield expected

Xinjiang enters cotton harvest season with higher yield expected

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US Fed's 25 basis point cut aligns with market expectations: expert

2024-11-09 07:21 Last Updated At:08:17

The U.S. Federal Reserve's 25 basis point cut on Thursday aligns with market expectations, said Li Fuyi, associate researcher at Institute for Foreign Economic Studies under the Academy of Macroeconomic Research.

The Fed on Thursday slashed interest rates by 25 basis points amid cooling inflation and a weakening labor market, marking the second rate cut in this easing cycle.

Since earlier in the year, labor market conditions have generally eased, and the unemployment rate has moved up but remains low. Inflation has made progress toward the Committee's 2 percent objective but remains somewhat elevated, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the central bank's policy-setting body, said in a statement.

"From a policy perspective, the 50 basis point cut in September was a more precautionary move, aimed at preventing the policy from lagging too far behind developments. Moving forward, the rate cuts should slow and follow a more gradual pace, allowing enough room for policy adjustments. The Fed would lower rates by another 50 basis points by the end of the year, so the November 25 basis point cut aligns with market expectations. In terms of economic data, Fed policy mainly responds to changes in employment and inflation," Li explained the interest rate cut.

"Currently, U.S. inflation is gradually approaching the Fed's 2 percent objective. For instance, the initial core PCE figure for the third quarter was 2.2 percent. At the same time, the labor market is roughly in line with the Fed's full employment target range. In this situation, there is no urgent need for a major rate cut. A moderate rate cut also avoids overly pessimistic market interpretations of the current economic situation. This approach is an optimal solution for the Fed's delicate balance between curbing inflation and avoiding economic cooling," she said.

US Fed's 25 basis point cut aligns with market expectations: expert

US Fed's 25 basis point cut aligns with market expectations: expert

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