URUMQI, April 29 (Xinhua) -- Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region had more than 427,000 officials with ethnic minority backgrounds by the end of 2019, according to the regional government.

The officials play an important part in Xinjiang's administrative management, economy, education, science and technology, health and culture, said Iljan Anagyit, spokesperson of the information office of the regional people's government.

China has always paid attention to selecting, training and employing ethnic officials and talents with professional skills. Through training, grassroots practice, exchange programs and rotation of positions, China has cultivated a lot of excellent ethnic officials, providing support for Xinjiang's development, Iljan Anagyit said.

Starting in 1954, China launched classes to train Xinjiang's ethnic officials, creating 4,635 officials on the county level and above. Of them, 2,771 were ethnic officials, accounting for 60 percent of the total. In recent years, Xinjiang sent 1,483 officials to various state organs and to developed areas to accumulate experience, including 758 ethnic officials, or 51.1 percent of the total.

By the end of 2019, China had cultivated more than 5,900 mid- and high-level ethnic talents with professional skills that Xinjiang urgently needed.