Premier Li Keqiang on Aug 25 met Kazakh First Deputy Prime Minister Bakytzhan Sagintayev, who was in Beijing to attend the seventh meeting of the China-Kazakh cooperation committee.

Premier Li said China and Kazakhstan are close neighbors; and noted that since he visited the country in December last year and reached significant consensus on large-scale industrial capacity cooperation with Kazakh leaders, the past half year has seen great progress.

He said China is willing to dock its development plan with Kazakhstan and improve the coordination of economic and trade policies; and added he hopes the two governments formulate favorable policies to boost industrial capacity cooperation and build ground-breaking projects as a showcase for such cooperation.

Premier Li said the global economy is still complicated and confusing, characterized by big market turbulence, which has also affected the Chinese economy. He said the fundamentals of the Chinese economy have not changed, economic growth is still within a reasonable range, and positive factors supporting the real economy are increasing.

The Premier said China has room to take innovative steps and implement macroeconomic policies, and domestic demand is huge. As the government takes more reform measures to encourage market vitality and improve people’s living conditions, he said China has the ability and conditions to achieve its annual economic growth target, which will be a big contribution to the global economy.

Talking about the yuan exchange rate, Premier Li said that China has recently improved the quotation regime of the yuan’s central parity as an appropriate response to international financial market developments.

Such an adjustment is also part of China’s ongoing reform efforts, there is no basis for continued depreciation of the yuan, and the exchange rate will be kept basically stable at an adaptive and equilibrium level, said the Premier.

Sagintayev said Kazakh-China cooperation on industrial capacity has made great progress. He said his government is willing to implement agreements being reached with China, especially in industrial, energy, rail and agriculture sectors. He said Kazakhstan has full confidence in the Chinese economy and bilateral cooperation.