Premier Li Keqiang said China is ready to link the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with Kazakhstan’s new economic policy, the Bright Road, while meeting with his Kazakh counterpart Bakytzhan Sagintayev in Dushanbe on Oct 11. Both leaders are in Tajikistan’s capital for an annual meeting of heads of government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states.

Premier Li said China is willing to maintain high-level exchanges with Kazakhstan, steadily promote existing cooperation projects, and constantly expand new areas of cooperation.

He noted that China and Kazakhstan are friendly and close neighbors of mutual trust and comprehensive strategic partners of mutual benefit. Both countries regard each other’s stability, development and revitalization as a good opportunity for their own development, he said.

Premier Li said he hoped that the two countries will strengthen port docking, expand the scale of its trade, jointly safeguard an open world economy and the multilateral trading system, and work towards pragmatic cooperation achievements that benefit the two countries and its people.

Sagintayev said Kazakhstan and China share friendly relations, adding that bilateral trade volume between the two countries continues to grow and capacity cooperation projects are steadily advancing.

In order to achieve mutual benefit, Kazakhstan is willing to work with China to deepen the development strategy, promote the transformation and upgrading of the port, improve the transit volume of goods in Kazakhstan and further expand the export of agricultural products, Sagintayev added.