Finance ministers from China and seven other countries in central Asia are expected to agree on a framework for medium-term strategic cooperation in a meeting in northwest China next month.

Ju Kuilin, deputy-director of the International Department of the Chinese Ministry of Finance, said ministers from Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as well as China are also expected to pass a comprehensive action plan on regional economic cooperation and launch cooperation in research and capacity building for AIDS and avian flu prevention.

He told reporters that the cooperation plan, the first of its kind in central Asia, would serve as a guideline for cooperation in the next three to five years.

The meeting is scheduled for Oct. 18 to 20 in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, northwest China, which borders Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and other central Asian countries.

The Asian Development Bank initiated a regional cooperation mechanism for central Asian region, which was launched in 2002 focusing on communications, energy, trade facilitation and trade.

Regional highway corridor projects linking China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan were under construction, and plans for other highway and railway projects linking some of the central Asian countries had been proposed, said the official.

The regional cooperation projects have used preferential loans totaling 440 million U.S. dollars and 83 million U.S. dollars in technical aid from the Asian Development Bank and other international organizations, such as the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program.

Source: Xinhua