Urumqi, January 21 (XINHUA) -- The Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwest China will invest 420 billion yuan (51 billion U.S. dollars) in fixed assets during the country's 10th Five-Year Plan period for 2001-2005, compared with 254 billion yuan in the 1996-2000 period. 
	
	
 Nearly 60 percent of the investment will come from the central government and state-owned enterprises, a local official said Monday. 
	
	
 In 2001, the region's investment in fixed assets increased 15 percent year on year to 70.6 billion yuan, with investment in technical renovation and real estate development up 23.9 and 65.5 percent, respectively. 
	
	
 Fixed asset investment planned for this year will be 80.7 billion yuan, an increase of 15.2 percent. The money will mainly be used for the construction of 27 key projects in the fields of water conservancy, energy, transportation and environmental protection. 
	
	
 Wang Lequan, secretary of the regional committee of the Communist Party of China, has listed comprehensive treatment of the Tarim River and the project to ship natural gas from Xinjiang to eastern China as the most important projects for this year. 
	
	
 In 1996-2000, Xinjiang completed a big number of major transportation, energy, water conservancy and telecommunications projects with 254 billion yuan of fixed asset investment. 
	
	
 Upon operation of the double-track railway line linking Lanzhou in Gansu Province with Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, and the southern Xinjiang railway line which links Kashi with Turpan, the mileage of railways in Xinjiang has reached 3,008 km. 
	
	
 Xinjiang now also has 33,500 km of highways, with more than 60 air routes linking the region with the outside world.