Secretary General: Beijing attaches great importance to developing relations with Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan, Ashgabat, Nov. 28 / Trend H. Hasanov / The Chinese government attaches great importance to the development of bilateral relations with Turkmenistan, a letter of Secretary General of the Communist Party of China Xi Jinping to the Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow said. 'I express my sincere appreciation for your congratulatory message on the occasion of my election to the post of General Secretary of the Central Committee of China's Communist Party', the message said. The Chinese leader said that Turkmenistan has made brilliant achievements in its socio-economic development which has attracted worldwide attention. "As a sincere friend and reliable partner of China I am very pleased with these achievements," he said. According to him, in recent years Chinese-Turkmen relations of friendship and cooperation have been rapidly developing and the partnership in various fields has broad prospects. "I am ready to make joint efforts to further strengthen and deepen the systematic friendly Chinese-Turkmen cooperation to benefit the two countries and their people," Jinping noted. At present, China ranks first in the total volume of Turkmenistan's foreign trade turnover and work is being conducted on expanding the range of export and import goods. China is one of Turkmenistan's long term partners in the oil and gas sector as evidenced by the construction and commissioning of the transnational Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline in 2009. According to estimations of the experts of the two countries, the volume of Turkmen natural gas delivered to China starting at the beginning of 2010 till late this year will reach 44 billion cubic meters. Under the new arrangements, the annual level of fuel supplied to China in the future will be increased to 65 billion cubic meters by connecting to additional links. Last year Turkmen gas was directed to the pipeline system of the Guangdong Province, one of the most populous and fastest growing regions in China, located on the Pacific coast. Do you have any feedback? Contact our journalist at agency@trend.az