Years on

An item from May 9, 2012, in China Daily showed a woman looking at souvenirs from Kyrgyzstan at the China-Eurasia Expo in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

Trade between China and its five neighbors in Central Asia has been growing rapidly in recent decades. In July 2007, the first Central Asian Economic and Trade Cooperto Editor’s note: This year marks the 40th anniversary of China’s reform and opening-up policy. ation Forum was held in Urumqi. In 2009, China became the largest trading partner with Central Asian countries, surpassing Russia.

The total trade volume increased from $465 million in 1992 to $29 billion in 2010, according to customs statistics.

By 2013, when President Xi Jinping unveiled the Belt and Road Initiative during a trip Kazakhstan, trade had ballooned to $50 billion. The initiative comprises the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road and aims to build a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia, Europe and Africa along ancient trade routes.

In 2014, a logistics terminal in Jiangsu province’s Lianyungang Port — built by China and Kazakhstan — went into operation. It was the first project between China and the countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative and had handled 7.77 million metric tons of goods as of the end of July last year.

As of November, the ChinaCentral Asia natural gas pipeline has transported about 200 billion cubic meters of gas, according to China National Petroleum Corp, the country’s largest oil and gas supplier and producer.

The pipeline, which started operations in December 2009, runs through China, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, with an annual capacity above 55 billion cu m. It was the first pipeline to import natural gas from abroad by land.