Chinese president starts Central Asian tour

Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Ashkhabad on Tuesday for a state visit to Turkmenistan to lift bilateral relations and further cooperation between China and the Central Asian country.

During the two-day visit, Xi is expected to hold talks with his Turkmenian counterpart Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov.

China-Turkmenistan relations have maintained sound development momentum since the two countries forged diplomatic ties in 1992.

They have seen frequent high-level visits, and ever-expanding cooperation and fruitful results in the fields of trade, economy, energy and culture in recent years.

China has become the largest trade partner of Turkmenistan, and the two-way trade hit 10.3 billion US dollars last year.

In the field of energy, a highlight of China-Turkmenistan cooperation, the two have put into operation the world's largest natural gas pipeline with a total length of more than 8,000 km.

Turkmenistan is the first stop of Xi's four-nation Central Asian tour which will also take him to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Prior to Xi's visit, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping said the president will comprehensively lift China's level of cooperation with the countries and raise new proposals.

The Chinese president will also attend the eighth summit of the Group of Twenty in the Russian city of St. Petersburg and the 13th meeting of the Council of Heads of Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan.