Central Asia hopes to further consolidate its role as a bridge connecting China and Europe and strengthen its status as a logistics hub by participating in the Belt and Road Initiative, said Djoomart Otorbaev, former prime minister of Kyrgyzstan.
Otorbaev said he expects to see Central Asia, once a key passage of the ancient Silk Road, build a “new great silk road” that will bring the region back “onto the map of the world”.
The former prime minister said during a recent interview in Beijing that he hopes that through BRI cooperation, especially the construction of a railway linking Kyrgyzstan with China on the east and Uzbekistan on the west, Kyrgyzstan will transform itself from a landlocked country into a land-linked one.
The railway project is one focus of cooperation between China and Kyrgyzstan.
During his talks with visiting Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov on the sidelines of the China-Central Asia Summit in Xi’an, Shaanxi province, in May, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for an early start of the construction of the railway.
In a joint declaration that the leaders signed after the talks, the two countries agreed to speed up work on the railway to further tap into Central Asia’s potential for cross-border transportation, and said they will promote BRI cooperation in trade, infrastructure and other fields.
Source : China Daily