Kazakh merchant Zianblativ has his fingers crossed that a cross-border trade zone between China and Kazakhstan will bring him good fortune on a historic trade route.
"It'll reduce costs and risks if I can reach deals with Chinese merchants right here at the trade zone," he said. "It costs dearly and takes weeks for me to load Chinese made commodities in Urumqi of Xinjiang and ship them all the way to Almaty."
Construction has begun on the Chinese side of the cross-border trade zone at Korgas port. The one-billion-U.S.-dollar project will provide closer economic and trade links between China and Kazakhstan and eventually to other central Asian and European markets.
The Chinese side of the project will take at least five years to complete, but Chen Mingjie, a businesswoman in Xinjiang, is already thinking about taking up border trade again, nine years after she was forced to quit the market amid business declines at Korgas port.
Korgas was a major stopping-off site on the Silk Road, a network of 7,000 km of trails that connected ancient China with India, Western Asia and Europe 2,000 years ago.
Closer ties within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), an organization established in June 2001 among China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, have rejuvenated the ancient road in recent years.
But the new Silk Road features booming trade on a wide variety of commodities, including oil and gas, far beyond the traditional silk and chinaware pieces carried on camel backs.
"Energy road" running through central, eastern Asia
On May 25, a 962-km oil pipeline started piping oil from Kazakhstan to China, a move experts say will intensify China's cooperation with the central Asian nations in the energy sector.
The new oil shipping route will link Chinese consumers with the oil fields of the Caspian Sea, and alleviate China's excessive reliance on the Strait of Malacca, a traditional route for 80 percent of China's imported oil, said Yin Juntai, deputy general manager of China Petroleum Exploration and Development Company.
The route is also part of the "energy road" running through central and eastern Asia as the central Asian nations have been tapping the Chinese market to expand their own energy exports and to seek economic integration with the Asia Pacific region through China.
Kazakhstan alone has reported an average 10 percent GDP growth for three consecutive years thanks to its strategy to rejuvenate the country with oil and gas.
In April, Russia launched the construction of its longest oil pipeline from eastern Siberia to the Pacific Ocean, a 4,000-km project whose branch line is expected to pipe 30 million tons of oil to China annually.
Intensified cooperation with other SCO member states in the energy sector has provided China with the much-needed power resources, particularly in large cities like Shanghai, the birthplace of the SCO. The city will replace compressed coal gas with piped natural gas for at least 100,000 more households this year.
Oil imports through central Asia will help reinforce Shanghai's projected oil and gas supply network backed by natural gas from the East China Sea, western China and liquefied natural gas imports, said sources with the city's Natural Gas Supplies Co. Ltd.
New Euroasia transportation corridor leading to the Atlantic
The upcoming SCO summit on Thursday will also be discussing the SCO member countries' cooperation in the transportation sector.
The recent completion of the Chinese section of the new Silk Road, from Lianyungang in east China's Jiangsu Province to Helgus in Xinjiang, will push the construction of a Euroasia transportation corridor that runs 11,000 km from China's east coast to Rotterdam via 18 Chinese provincial areas and more than 20 countries and regions including Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland and Germany.
Cross-border road transportation is playing an increasingly vital role in promoting economic development, cultural exchange and social prosperity in Asia and Europe, said Chinese Vice Premier Huang Ju.
"The Chinese government attaches great importance to the transportation industry and has invested large sums into such projects," he said, adding that China will step up international transportation cooperation and make more efforts for the construction of a new Silk Road and a Euroasia continental bridge.
By the end of 2004, the most recent time that data is available, China has signed ten bilateral motor transport treaties and three multilateral intergovernmental treaties with Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Laos, Vietnam, Nepal and set 60 international road ports and more than 140 international passenger liners.
Ultimate goal: common prosperity
With the SCO's goals of expand regional cooperation and seeking common prosperity, the six member states have stricken 127 cooperation deals and set up seven professional work teams to promote multilateral cooperation in product quality inspection, customs, e-commerce, investment promotion, transportation, energy and telecommunications sectors.
The six countries have agreed to give priority to cooperation in the transportation, energy, telecommunication, agriculture, household electric appliances, light industry and textile sectors, gradually ensure the free flow of goods, capital, services and technologies in the region and eventually set up a free trade zone within the SCO's framework.
"SCO enjoys massive potentials in bolstering regional economic cooperation," said Zhao Jinping, an economist with the Development Research Center of the State Council, or the Chinese central government. "If the region achieves economic integrity, the combined GDP of the six member economies will make up about 30 percent of the world's total by 2020."
China reported nearly 40 billion U.S. dollars of trade with other SCO members in 2005, up 212 percent over that of 2001, the year the SCO was founded, according to the Ministry of Commerce.
The ministry said China's actual investment in the other five SCO members totaled eight billion U.S. dollars last year, four times the 2001 figure.
