HONG KONG, Dec 6 (Reuters) - China's Xinjiang Cotton

Association said on Friday that international brands should give

"full respect and trust" to Xinjiang cotton, following an

executive's comment last week that clothing company Uniqlo does

not take supply from the region.

The association called on brands like Uniqlo to resume the

use of cotton from China's far western territory of Xinjiang to

help maintain the "healthy and stable development of the global

cotton textile industry," according to a statement made on its

official WeChat account on Thursday.

In a British Broadcasting Corporation interview last week,

Tadashi Yanai, CEO of Fast Retailing ( FRCOF ), Uniqlo's parent

company, said the fashion chain does not use Xinjiang cotton in

its products.

Rights groups and the U.S. government have accused China of

abuses against Xinjiang's Uyghur population, and the issue of

buying cotton or other goods from the region has been a

geopolitical minefield for foreign companies with a large

presence in China.

Beijing denies any abuses in Xinjiang, which produces the

vast majority of China-made cotton.

"We expect international brands like Uniqlo to give full

respect and trust to Xinjiang cotton," the association said.

"We call on the international community and textile and

garment companies to maintain a high degree of rational analysis

and choice of all anti-Xinjiang remarks and behaviours."

Xinjiang is part of Beijing's effort to shift labour

intensive industries such as textiles out of the Pearl River

Delta and into China's interior.

The textile hub is also a key part of President Xi Jinping's

Belt and Road Initiative, or "new silk road", an economic push

spreading from western China to Central Asia and onwards towards

Europe.