CHINA> Regional
Better care to make Xinjiang workers feel at home
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-07-22 23:13

SHAOGUAN, Guangdong: An official of Shaoguan city in southern Guangdong Province promised Wednesday to take better care of Xinjiang workers and make them feel ease to work and live there.

A public security incident will not affect the trade cooperation and labor exchanges between Shaoguan and Xinjiang, said  Lin Yaoming, deputy secretary of the Communist Party of China Shaoguan City Committee on Wednesday.

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The Shaoguan government plans to offer special rooms for 79 couples among the 770 Xinjiang workers in the Xuri Toy Factory, said Lin, adding that the factory has also opened a shop and built sports facilities specially for Xinjiang workers. The factory has set up a clinic for Xinjiang workers as temperature in Guangdong remained high recently.

Lin also said that the city will provide more training to Xinjiang workers to help increase their income.

A post on a local website that said "Six Xinjiang boys raped two innocent girls at the Xuri Toy Factory" caused a mass brawl, that left two Uygur employees dead and more than 100 injured on June 26. The rumormonger had been detained by police.

Ehet Sayit, head of Xinjiang's Shufu county, home to Xinjiang workers in the toy factory, said that the county government has encouraged local people to work in coastal regions as an effort to develop their hometown.

"A migrant worker can earn up to 1,600 yuan (about US$200) per month, a big contrast to the average annual per capita income of 2,649 yuan," said Sayit.

The workers can also learn about technologies that can help them start their own business after they return home, the county official said.

Coastal cities like Shaoguan are seeing more ethnic arrivals from inland regions. About 1.5 million migrant workers of different ethnic groups work in Guangdong Province, according to the provincial government.

Shufu county, with a population of 320,000, has seen 70,000 to 75,000 people work outside every year, said Ehet Sayit. About 3,400 people from Shufu county came to Guangdong province this year.