China increases gas imports from Central Asian countries and these want closer trade with Beijing
Official customs data show that China imported 13.4 billion cubic meters of natural gas (bcm) during June, up 19% from the level of imports in the same month in 2022. Global imports are arrived in China through gas pipelines and in liquefied form. Overall, 5.785 billion cubic meters of gas were imported through pipelines in June, a slight increase from the previous month's total. The main suppliers through the pipelines were Turkmenistan (2.69 billion cubic meters), Russia (1.9 billion cubic meters), Kazakhstan (610 million cubic meters) and Uzbekistan (370 cubic meters) . However, the strategic priorities of individual countries are different and go well beyond gas, extending to sectors such as food and investment.
Kazakhstan
Kazakh agricultural officials are working to remove barriers to food exports to China. Kazakh officials met with representatives of China's customs services to discuss logistical issues that have hampered exports, the press service of the Ministry of Agriculture said. An official of the Ministry of Agriculture, Baurzhan Abyzbaev, expressed Kazakhstan's willingness to conduct an "audit of the veterinary services system". Furthermore, the Kazakh authorities have expressed interest in increasing exports of rapeseed, peas and lentils to China.
Meanwhile, Kazakhstan's wheat exports to China have recovered over the past year, but are still below their 2020-21 totals. During the 10-month "marketing period" of 2022-23, Kazakhstan exported 273,000 tons of wheat, compared to only 22,380 tons in the previous year's marketing period. The most recent data still falls short of the more than 301,000 tons Kazakhstan shipped to China in 2020-21. The average price of grain shipped to China from Kazakhstan in 2022-23 was $270 per ton, 13% lower than the 2021-22 figure of $310 per ton, according to state-owned company QazTrade.
Tajikistan
Rustam Emomali, son and heir presumptive of Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, concluded an official visit to China on August 23. Emomali made the trip as speaker of the upper house of Tajikistan's legislature. During the visit, he held talks with Zhao Leji, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China, on ways to expand interparliamentary cooperation.
Emomali has also signed several agreements on infrastructure development, including the one for the repair of the Kulma-Karasu border crossing between Tajikistan and China and for the repair of the roads of the Tajik capital Dushanbe. Meanwhile, Russia's TASS news agency reports that Tajikistan wants to move forward with a $227 million road improvement initiative in the remote Gorno-Badakhshan region. The project is intended to expand land transportation options for Chinese-European trade. The TASS report does not specify how Tajikistan will fund the initiative.
According to the Khovar News Agency, a new educational exchange program for training Tajik students in the extractive industries sector is being launched. The Mining and Metallurgical Institute of Tajikistan has signed an agreement with the Oil and Gas University of China, under which Tajik students will study for two years at the Mining and Metallurgical Institute and then for another two years at a Chinese university. Education in China will be free for Tajik students, who will receive Chinese diplomas.
Uzbekistan
China is considering expanding its exports to Europe via Uzbek railways. Officials from China's coastal Jiangsu province visited Uzbekistan on a fact-finding mission in mid-August, holding talks with Uzbek freight railway representatives and scouting potential locations for logistics facilities in Tashkent, Samarkand, Ferghana and Andijan
So energy exchange is leading to ever closer ties between Beijing and Central Asia, almost in a situation of symbiosis between energy consumers and suppliers who, however, have different priorities.
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The article China increases gas imports from Central Asian countries and they want closer trade with Beijing comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/la-cina-incrementa-limport-di-gas-dai-paesi-dellasia-centrali-e-questi-vogliono-commerci-piu-stretti-con-pechino/ on Fri, 25 Aug 2023 07:30:10 +0000.