Tarim Basin, popularly known as a "Treasure Bowl" in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, is expected to greet a mineral exploitation upsurge with signing of a string of agreements on mineral development.

The Mongolian autonomous prefecture of Bayingolin, where the Tarim Basin locates, recently reached 14 agreements in the national capital with a number of geological prospecting departments in Beijing and Xinjiang on co-exploitation of sylvite, andalusite and vermiculite resources.

Bayingolin, whose land space accounts for one 20th of China's total territory, is a mineral-rich zone with a total of 74 proven mineral resources. The reserve of 58 minerals have been verified with nine ranking the top 10 in the country.

In line with an outlined development blueprint, Zhang Zhiheng, secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Committee of the Bayingolin Mongolian autonomous prefecture, said that the added-value of some principal mineral products is expected to reach 4.2 billion yuan (more than 500 million US dollars) by the year 2010 and proceed to amount to 13 billion yuan (1.5 billion US dollars) by 2020.

To attain the goal, a number of key mineral production bases will be built in Tarim to expand production scale, Zhang noted. But he declined to give the exact number of new mines.