BEIJING, June 11 (Xinhua) -- China's economic and trade ties with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have yielded fruitful results over years of joint efforts to promote the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
The relationships are expected to be deepened as Chinese President Xi Jinping travels to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan from June 12 to 16 for state visits as well as the 19th meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the fifth summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA).
Here are the key facts on the progress made in the past few years and the broader economic exchanges between China, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
-- China is Tajikistan's largest source of investment and third largest trading partner. Bilateral trade volume amounted to 1.51 billion U.S. dollars in 2018, up about 10 percent year on year.
China's direct investment in Tajikistan totalled 95.01 million dollars in 2017.
-- The Dushanbe-2 thermal power station, jointly launched by China and Tajikistan and completed in 2016, meets 60 percent of the power demand of the Tajik capital, and enabled the restart of central heating for more than 700,000 Dushanbe residents after 15 years of suspension.
-- The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), a multilateral development bank initiated by China, approved a loan of 27.5 million dollars for Tajikistan's Dushanbe-Uzbekistan Border Road Improvement Project in 2016 and 60 million dollars on the first phase of the Nurek Hydropower Rehabilitation Project in 2017.
-- China is both the largest source of investment and trading partner of Kyrgyzstan with a trade volume of 5.61 billion dollars in 2018.
-- China's direct investment in Kyrgyzstan totalled 123.7 million dollars in 2017.
-- Chinese enterprises signed 25 engineering contracts worth of 317 million dollars in 2017 in Kyrgyzstan.
-- The Asia Star agricultural industry cooperation zone in Kyrgyzstan, invested by a Chinese company, covers an area of 5.67 square km and has the most complete industrial chain and the soundest infrastructure among similar zones in Central Asian countries participating in BRI.