URUMQI -- College faculties refuted the rumors of so-called "forced labor" fabricated by Western anti-China forces at a symposium held Saturday in Urumqi, Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

The country's preferential policies on entrepreneurship and the region's policies to support the employment of college students have enabled many students to create a better life, said Julet Turdi, president of Xinjiang University of Finance and Economics.

Julet said that the school has set up career planning courses for students beginning in their first year. In 2021, the employment rate of students graduating from the university reached 95.54 percent.

Qi Qungao, vice president of Xinjiang Agricultural University, said that the school has set up a service platform to help graduates get jobs and learn about employment policies.

The university has held 482 job fairs, providing more than 93,000 job vacancies for graduates since 2020. In the past five years, over 2,000 innovative and entrepreneurial projects have been approved, with a total subsidy amount of nearly 10 million yuan (about $1.6 million), Qi added.

College students of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang have chosen their own jobs and started their own businesses, and the "forced labor" fallacy concocted by the United States and other countries in the West shows clearly their sinister intentions of smearing Xinjiang, attendees of the symposium said.