Salt lakes are widely distributed across China' s western Qinghai, Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, with rich resources of potassium, magnesium, lithium and boron. They have huge economic potential. Exploitation and utilization of these resources will play an important and realistic role in developing the economy, stabilizing the social condition of western areas and meeting the country' s requirements for potassium, lithium, magnesium and boron. Consideration should be given to the fragile natural ecological conditions of the western areas and principle of sustainable development should be followed to optimize the development, at the same time, attention should be paid to comprehensive utilization of co-existing resources when developing potassium fertilizers from salt lakes.
At present the main strength of salt lake resource development should be focused on Qaidam basin which occupies 97% of China' s total potash deposit. Research on development of salt lake resources should be stressed and progress of industrialization must be also accelerated to solve problems that have checked the comprehensive utilization of potassium, lithium, magnesium and boron. The construction of the example production base will speed up. On the basis of these precursory works a modern enterprise will be established to exploit potassium, lithium, magnesium and boron, which can contribute to the sustainable development of resources in western areas.