China's Gold Rich Region Reports Growth for Seven Consecutive Years

The gold output jumped by 14.89 percent year-on-year to reach 10.5 tonnes in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in 2010, local authorities said Sunday.

That indicates Xinjiang, one of the top ten gold producing regions in China, has seen its gold output grow for seven years on end, a spokesman with the Xinjiang Gold Administration said.

The increase was mainly spurred by the gold price hike last year, the spokesman said.

The average price of gold stood at about 259 yuan (39.2 U.S. dollars) per gram in 2010, up 20 percent from a year earlier, he said.

The vast Xinjiang region is abundant in gold reserves, with an estimated 207.48 tonnes in 600 different areas, he added.