BEIJING (BLOOMBERG) - Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to accelerate the economic development of the Xinjiang autonomous region, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

The country will include the region's opening-up strategy into the broader growth agenda of China's western areas, Xi was cited as saying at a working meeting held in Beijing on Friday and Saturday. It will also bring forward the upgrading of local industries to increase local incomes and boost social development in southern Xinjiang, according to the report.

The US has piled pressure on China over its treatment of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, where the United Nations estimated hundreds of thousands of members of the ethnic minority could be held in "re-education camps". China has defended the camps as "vocational education centres" intended to "purge ideological diseases", including terrorism and religious extremism.