The State Council, or China's Cabinet, on Saturday unveiled guidelines giving more support to the construction of two economic development zones in the northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

According to guidelines released on the central government's website, the State Council will adopt measures such as fiscal subsidies and tax preferences to facilitate the construction of the Kashgar and Korgas economic development zones located in western and southern Xinjiang.

The central government will work to develop the two zones into new sources of economic growth in Xinjiang and grow the cities of Kashgar and Yining as regional hubs for China's opening up to central, southern and western Asian countries as well as eastern Europe.

According to the guidelines, the central government will offer a certain amount of financial subsidies every year to the development of the two economic zones from 2011 to 2015, exempt qualified enterprises from business income taxes for five years, subsidize fixed-asset investment and offer government loans to qualified companies at discounted rates.

Qualified farm products processing enterprises and other labor-intensive companies will have discounts in paying their power consumption and transportation fees.

The central government will increase investment in major infrastructure facilities construction projects in the two zones, including the construction of the China-Kyrghyzstan-Uzbekistan railway and the China-Pakistan railway.

(Xinhua News Agency October 8, 2011)