This aerial photo taken on Nov. 10, 2022 shows a cotton picker at work in Xayar County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. [Photo/Xinhua]

Cotton output in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region topped 5.39 million tonnes in 2022, up 262,000 tonnes over the previous year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The autonomous region contributed 90.2 percent of the country's total cotton output this year.

The cotton planting area in Xinjiang edged down in 2022 to around 37.45 million mu (2.5 million hectares), accounting for 83.2 percent of the national planting area, according to the NBS.

The cotton yield in Xinjiang averaged 143.9 kg per mu in 2022, an increase of 7.5 kg per mu over the previous year.

Xinjiang has ranked first in China for 28 consecutive years in terms of total cotton output, per-unit yield, planting area, and commodity allocation.

Xinjiang has seen mechanized and intelligent cotton planting in recent years, with machines doing over 80 percent of the picking work, the local department of agriculture and rural affairs said.

Since the 1990s, Xinjiang has gradually become the largest cotton production base in China and an important producer of the crop throughout the world. Nearly half of the local farmers are engaged in cotton production.