BEIJING: Agricultural partnerships, ranging from farm produce to the sharing of farming know-how, have expanded between China and Central Asian countries over the past 30 years, officials and experts said.
China has signed a number of agreements with Central Asian counterparts, and collaborated in fields such as locust control and horse rearing, said Li Hongtao, deputy director of the international economic cooperation division of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
Chinese research institutes, such as the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, have formed lasting ties with Central Asian partners. They’ve created joint labs, and have achieved progress in animal husbandry, veterinary medicine, cotton farming and dryland agriculture, among many other fields, he said at an agricultural forum in Qingdao, Shandong province, in February. “The trade volume of farm produce between China and the five Central Asian countries has increased year by year, from $175 million in 1992 to $1.073 billion in 2021,” he said, referring to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Yuan Rui, director of the agricultural bureau in Qingdao, said the city was involved in a series of modern agricultural cooperation projects with the five countries. Those include the building of soybean, alfalfa and other crops and animal husbandry bases in Kazakhstan, creating an economic seedling base in Uzbekistan, and signing a cooperation memorandum between Shandong Port and Kazakhstan to promote cross-border trade. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
