ASTANA (TCA) — Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks with Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev on June 8 in Astana, as the Kazakh capital city is hosting a June 8-9 summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
Nazarbayev told Xi on June 8 that China had become Kazakhstan’s “major partner” in recent years. In Nazarbayev’s words, Astana is working to transfer 51 industrial facilities from China to Kazakhstan.
On June 8, Xi Jinping visited the Chinese national pavilion of the Expo 2017 that will open in Astana on June 10, and together with Nazarbayev participated in a videoconference “Kazakhstan-China: Transit Bridge of Eurasia”.
During the video conference, the heads of state launched a new container service in the Eurasian space — from the Kazakh-Chinese Lianyungang Terminal in China to the Dry Port of the Special Economic Zone Khorgos – Eastern Gateway on the Kazakh-Chinese border, the press-office of Kazakhstan’s national railways company Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ) said.
Today, container trains run from the port of Lianyungang to Central Asia and Istanbul via Kazakhstan. For the first time the container service on the routes Tilburg (Netherlands) – Chengdu (China) and Tashkent – Chengdu is carried out using the capacities of the Kazakhstan station Altynkol.
The involvement of China’s COSCO Shipping Company and Lianyungang Port in the SEZ Khorgos – Eastern Gateway project has provided the possibility of transcontinental transportation of COSCO Shipping sea containers by land route in the direction of Lianyungang – Central Asia using Kazakhstan’s transport and logistics infrastructure, KTZ said.
Facilitating the transportation and creating more opportunities for cooperation, these trains have exemplified the fruits of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, both components of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, Xinhua quoted Xi as saying.
He noted that as Kazakhstan is committed to aligning its economic plan of Nurly Zhol, or Bright Path in the Kazakh language, with the Belt and Road Initiative, it has turned from a landlocked nation into a key hub for transportation in the Eurasia continent, and enhanced its role in the East-West trade link.
The Chinese leader urged concerted efforts of both countries to make the new Eurasia land and maritime routes linked by Lianyungang and Khorgos pilot projects of the Belt and Road Initiative, so as to promote peace, prosperity, openness, innovation and exchanges of civilizations along these paths.
