Chinese President Xi Jinping urged his Turkmenistan counterpart to expand cooperation on energy, especially natural gas, Chinese state television reported on Friday.
President Serdar Berdymukhamedov was in Beijing for a two-day visit. Turkmenistan is China’s single largest supplier of piped natural gas.
Xi also told Berdymukhamedov that China supports more Chinese firms to invest in Turkmenistan, Reuters reports.
Turkmenistan has the world’s fourth-largest gas reserves and China plays a central role in the Central Asian nation’s foreign policy and in powering its economy.
"This growing dependency on China is reflected in Turkmenistan’s trade with Beijing. The vast majority of the $10 billion in annual bilateral trade is made up of Turkmen exports, mostly of natural gas.
This dynamic looks set to increase further, with yearly trade turnover increasing some 53 percent in 2022 and Ashgabat looking to renew Chinese support for an additional pipeline transporting Turkmen gas across Central Asia to China," RFE/RL reports.
