Chinese president meets Turkmenian counterpart on ties

Chinese President Xi Jinping met here Tuesday with his Turkmenian counterpart Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov on furthering ties and cooperation between China and the Central Asian country. The two leaders are expected to witness the signing of a series of cooperation documents after their talk. China-Turkmenistan relations have maintained sound development momentum since the two countries forged diplomatic ties in 1992. They have seen frequent high-level visits, ever-expanding cooperation and fruitful results in the fields of trade, economy, energy and culture in recent years. On economy and trade, China has become the largest trade partner of Turkmenistan, and the two-way trade hit 10.3 billion U.S. dollars last year. Turkmenistan is the first stop of Xi's Central Asian tour which will take him to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan as well. 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.