Xinjiang is on the whole safe and stable, but facing severe challenges in maintaining social stability as its social management foundation is still weak, local officials said here Tuesday.

Maintaining stability and fighting separatism are still top priorities for Xinjiang, said Nur Bekri, chairman of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Government, when attending the ongoing parliamentary session in Beijing.

"If there is no stability, the region would not achieve development and great improvement in the livelihoods of its people," he told reporters.

"We must earnestly undertake the task of maintaining stability anytime and under any circumstances," he said.

"I have great confidence in and have no worries about the stability in Xinjiang, but the lessons from the Middle East should be learned on a technological level," Zhang Chunxian, Party chief of Xinjiang, told reporters.

Nur Bekri said servicemen and policemen had been deployed in the streets to reinforce and safeguard social stability after the riot in Xinjiang, but the society there has come back to normal.

He meanwhile said Xinjiang's security situation is under control and is getting better and better, almost two years after a deadly riot rocked the ethnic region in China's far west.