Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is popularizing the use of condoms in its capital Urumqi, as a crucial step for AIDS prevention, said a local official.

Lin Quanyi, official from the autonomous region's family planning commission, said all 124 communities of the city's Tianshan District will be equipped with condom vending machines. Shops specially selling condoms will be also established.

This is the first part of a Sino-Australian anti-HIV program in Xinjiang, the official said.

The local government has already invested 850,000 yuan (about 100,000 US dollars) into to the two-year program. About 500,000 yuan (about 60,000 US dollars) of the total has been used so far.

Lin said the government will learn from foreign advanced publicizing and managing experience to make the use of condoms quickly and widely accepted by the locals.

The latest survey of the autonomous region's family planning commission shows that only 5 percent of the women at childbearing age in Xinjiang use condoms.

Xinjiang has detected the first HIV case in 1995, and by the end of 2003, the number of HIV-carriers in the autonomous region has soared to 8,153.