URUMQI — The world’s largest textile mill for spinning colored yarn was launched on Aug 25 in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

Built with an investment of 5 billion yuan ($735 million), the mill in Aksu, southern Xinjiang, will see 1 million spindles installed by the end of the year.

The textile mill is owned by Huafu Fashion Co. Ltd., the world’s largest supplier of melange yarn, which is based in East China’s Zhejiang province.

The company has also invested 2.5 billion yuan to build a dyeing industrial park in Aksu, which is designed with a capacity for dyeing and printing 100,000 tons of cotton yarn a year.

Sun Weiting, chairman of the company, said the factories were not only textile producing facilities, but also boasted a fashion designing, developing platform and intelligent and digital machines for developing environmentally-friendly textiles.

As the largest cotton grower in China, Xinjiang has attracted major textile companies from East and South China to set up branches and factories. Aksu, Kashgar and Hotan in southern Xinjiang are major producers of cotton. Aksu’s long-staple cotton output accounts for 93 percent of the country’s total.

As of 2017, there are more than 2,700 registered textile companies in Xinjiang, which have provided jobs for more than 350,000 local residents.

Huafu has 5,333 hectares of cotton growing fields in Xinjiang. Its annual cotton trade and logistic volume has reached 500,000 tons.