President: Turkmen-Chinese relations – crucial factor of stability and development for Eurasia

Turkmenistan, Ashgabat, September 6 / Trend, H. Hasanov / Turkmen-Chinese relations are a crucial factor in ensuring stability and development in Eurasia, Turkmen president Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov said during the meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping who paid his first state visit to Turkmenistan on September 3-4, Turkmen television reported. "China is a reliable and time-tested partner for our country. Turkmenistan is sincerely proud of relations with China and highly appreciates them," the Turkmen president said. According to him, these relations demonstrate their effectiveness and proved that currently, they are one of the main factors for ensuring stability and development in Eurasia.. Berdimuhamedov noted that the stable growth of bilateral commodity turnover is observed between the countries and the volume of commodity turnover amounted to nearly $9 billion last year. This figure was closer to $4.5 billion during the first six months of 2013. "This is the highest figure in the whole history of Turkmen-Chinese relations," he said. Currently, China is the largest foreign trade partner of Turkmenistan. Ashgabat and Beijing agreed to take measures for stimulating and protection of mutual investments, to support commercial enterprises for implementing activity in the territories of both countries. According to the report, the issues of improving the procedures, formalizing travels of the two countries' entrepreneurs participating in implementation of large joint projects will also be studied. In recent years China has become a key consumer of Turkmen gas and counts for increasing the annual purchases to 65 billion cubic meters of gas. In addition to gas, China actively cooperates with Turkmenistan in the sphere of supplying equipment and services for transport and communication. In particular, the Chinese industrial company the "Great Wall", which will help launch Turkmenistan's first national space satellite from China's Xichang Satellite Launch Center using "Changzheng-3B" rocket. Do you have any feedback? Contact our journalist at agency@trend.az