A worker operates on the fruit sorting line in Yichegashan Xibo ethnic township, Huocheng county, which was put into operation in 2025.

At 8 am, a fruit-purchasing truck arrives at the orchards in Yichegashan Xibo ethnic township, where fruit growers load baskets of crab apples. By 8:30, the fruit has reached the workshop, where two sorting lines run until 9 pm to prepare it for packaging and shipment. This is the daily routine of Liu Jing, a manager at Khorgos Aiguo International Trade.

"Fruit weighing between 25 and 40 grams is exported to Thailand, while fruit weighing more than 40 grams is supplied to the domestic market at 10 yuan ($1.48) per kilogram," Liu said. "Before we received export orders, only fruit weighing more than 35 grams was sold. Now we buy fruit weighing 25 grams or more, and the farmers are very happy."

This bustling sorting line offers just a snapshot of Suzhou Industrial Park's paired assistance to Horgos, aka Khorgos. From a technical school to an innovation and entrepreneurship center, and from humming fruit workshops in the countryside to the brand-new pocket parks right on residents' doorsteps, the imprint of Suzhou's paired assistance to Xinjiang can be found throughout Horgos — often in projects that demonstrate both meticulous attention to detail and a human touch.

At Khorgos Senior Technical School, Party branch secretary Meng Xiaojiang said that the school was approved by the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in 2020. It now has 1,751 students and 96 faculty members. Its eight regular programs — modern logistics, e-commerce, international trade, tourism service and management, culinary arts, fashion design, mechatronics and automotive technology — align with Horgos' industrial system, which integrates pillar industries, emerging sectors and a flexible array of sub-sectors.

"We train exactly the people enterprises need," Meng said. The school offers two tracks: a three-year intermediate technician program and a five-year senior technician program. Local businesses help design the curriculum, closing the gap between the classroom and the workplace.

The Suzhou Industrial Park paired assistance team supports the school with more than ideas. The new campus can accommodate nearly 2,000 students and staff, Meng said. The team has also brought several leading Suzhou technical institutes into the partnership network, signing interschool agreements and sending teachers to Suzhou to learn about educational practices and school-enterprise cooperation models.

"Children from border areas now have opportunities to study in developed regions. This can change their lives and futures," Meng said. Across the school's first two graduating classes, 367 students completed their studies. Nearly 46 percent remained in Horgos, while several outstanding graduates found jobs in inland provinces.

Representing a total investment of 625 million yuan and covering 167,800 square meters, the Khorgos Vocational Education Park includes an administration building and an indoor sports complex funded through Suzhou's aid program. Construction began in May 2024, and the main structures have been topped out. The project was delivered in early August 2025. The paired assistance team has invested 210 million yuan in the park and brought in Suzhou-based technical colleges to strengthen teacher training, curricula and laboratories.

The park can provide training for more than 30 job types and accommodate 7,000 students, deeply integrating Suzhou's education and industry models with Horgos' advantages as a border port city, said an official of Suzhou's paired assistance team in the Ili Kazak autonomous prefecture.

Nearby, another Suzhou-backed high-rise had already been completed: the Khorgos Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center. Construction began in August 2017 with a total investment of 140 million yuan. Covering 6,284 sq m, the 99.9-meter-tall building stands as a landmark project in the area.

In the countryside, Liu's workshop processes 20 metric tons of fruit daily during peak periods, employing over 100 locals earning 200 yuan a day. "Large fruit commands a higher price, while small fruit sells at a lower price — this approach works better than sorting and packing the fruit in the fields," she said. In Yichegashan Xibo ethnic township, 10 million yuan in Suzhou aid funded the construction of a 3,100-sq-m intelligent sorting facility. It processes more than 5,000 tons annually, generating 7 million yuan in added value and creating more than 50 stable jobs.

While boosting the incomes of farmers in Horgos, Suzhou also enriches the supply of agricultural products for consumers outside Xinjiang. Official data showed that sales of Xinjiang produce facilitated through aid programs reached 81.64 million yuan in 2024, up more than 300 percent year-on-year.