Interview: Expert says strengthened ties between China and Central Asian countries benefit all

TASHKENT, April 12 (Xinhua) -- After 30 years' development, China's cooperation with the Central Asian countries has strengthened, which will benefit all, an Uzbek expert has said in a recent interview.

Relations between China and Central Asian countries have moved to a new strategic level, said Eldor Tulyakov, the executive director of the Uzbek Development Strategy Center, referring to an online summit of the heads of state of Central Asia and China held in January and the Beijing Olympics as highlights.

He said the summit marking the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Central Asian countries and China shows the common interest of the two sides in further developing mutually beneficial and multilateral cooperation.

"Moreover, the participation of the five heads of Central Asian states in the opening ceremony of the 24th Olympic Winter Games in Beijing underlines that the relationship between the countries of the region is at a high level of strategic partnership," he said.

As regards China's trade and economic relations with the Central Asian states, he said China is among the leading trade and investment partners of the region.

Trade between China and Central Asian nations has grown by more than 100 times in the past 30 years, and the stocks of China's direct investment in the five countries exceeded 14 billion U.S. dollars, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce announced in January.

Speaking of a series of major projects jointly launched in agriculture, healthcare, electricity and the textile industry in the region, he said these projects "have directly accelerated the process of modernization of the regional countries and led to an improvement of the lives of a large number of the population."

"The dynamic and progressive development of mutual trade and investment gives a qualitative impetus to the socio-economic development of our states," Tulyakov said, highlighting such projects as Central Asia natural gas pipeline, Kazakhstan-China oil pipeline, China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan and China-Tajikistan highways, as well as the Peng Sheng industrial park in Uzbekistan and the Dushanbe-2 thermal power plant in Tajikistan.

He expressed confidence that further efforts to integrate national development strategies of these countries, for example, the alignment of the New Uzbekistan Development Strategy for 2022-2026 with China's Belt and Road Initiative, will contribute to the success of joint major projects.

These projects, he said, "will be practically beneficial not only to the peoples of our countries, but also to other countries of the world."