International commodity fair opens in Xinjiang's Kashgar

The 10th Kashgar Central and South Asia Commodity Fair kicked off Sunday in Kashgar, an ancient Silk Road town in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
As the largest trade event in south Xinjiang, the three-day fair has attracted 1,600 businessmen and delegates of trade and commerce associations, including 446 from six foreign countries, including Pakistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, according to the organizers.
A total of 1,480 indoor and outdoor stands will showcase the latest products, technologies and investment opportunities in agriculture, textiles, light industrial machinery, culture, tourism and other fields.
An international forum on the Silk Road Economic Belt and sessions will be held in an effort to upgrade the fair.
Long Yongtu, China's former chief negotiator for WTO entry and former secretary general of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA), Thomas J. Sargent, a winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, and many government officials, scholars and experts will attend the forum and give speeches.
The annual trade fair was first held in 2005 and has since become one of the most important international trade fairs held in Xinjiang. Contracts worth a combined total of 42.46 billion yuan (6.9 billion U.S.dollars) were signed at the ninth fair in 2013.