– Summit will herald a new era – President Xi

By Suelle Findlay-Williams in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, China

XI’AN, CHINA May 18– On Thursday, the two-day China-Central Asia Summit began in Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi Province in northwest China. The Summit aims to fortify the Belt and Road cooperation between China and Central Asia, and officials and observers have been lauding this move owing to its potential for mutual prosperity.

The Summit is intended to build on the existing relationship between China and Central Asian countries. The trade volume between the parties had hit a historic record of $70.2 billion in 2022, an increase of over 100 times since diplomatic ties were initiated three decades ago. The trade between China and the five Central Asian nations increased by 22% in the first two months of 2021 alone.

Director-General and Editor-in-Chief of Kazakhstan Today News Agency, Timur Kuvatov, said the Belt and Road Initiative had been very rewarding, promoting international development, trade,  economic ties and peaceful relations among countries. He stated that deeper Belt and Road cooperation was significant to the region and the globe since the ancient Silk Road’s visions and spirits would be revitalised.

The BRI has expanded China’s cooperation with Uzbekistan in the past decade. Uzbekistan’s Minister of Investment, Industry, and Trade, Laziz Kudratov, expressed that “China is one of the most important partners of Uzbekistan” at a business forum held beforehand. With bilateral trade seeing a 20% growth rate from 2020 to 2022, he hoped that the annual trade goal set by the countries of $10 billion could be achieved soon.

The Summit is expected to improve Belt and Road cooperation even further by increasing efforts to enhance connectivity and negotiating further improvements in the transport, energy, and communication sectors. As the world continues to recover from the pandemic, it is hoped that the Summit will bolster international trade and cooperation as well.  

President of the People’s Republic of China, H.E. Xi Jinping said that since the establishment of diplomatic ties, “China and Central Asian countries have traveled an extraordinary journey and made remarkable achievements.”

He said that these relations have experienced historic leaps from good-neighborly ties to strategic partnerships, and now to a community with a shared future.

“To deepen China-Central Asia cooperation is a strategic choice our generation of leaders have made with an eye toward the future,” President Xi explained.

The President stated that he is confident that with the joint efforts, the Summit will be a full success and will herald a new era of China-Central Asia relations.

Heads of State from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Afghanistan are attending the Summit, which will conclude on Friday.