TASHKENT — Chinese Premier Li Qiang met Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev on Saturday and promised “high-quality” work on a shared railway and more trade. The only figures in the readouts came from the Uzbek side.
Li said China is ready to expand trade with Uzbekistan and to ensure the “high-quality implementation” of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway project, according to Xinhua. Beijing’s report of the meeting carries no figures.
The numbers arrived in the Uzbek presidency’s readout of the meeting, which said the portfolio of projects “backed by firm agreements has reached nearly $60 billion” and that “more than 6,000 joint ventures have been established so far.” The readout does not say who tallied the total, over what period, or how much of it is built.
The two accounts stress different things on the railway. The Uzbek readout said construction “is progressing rapidly” and that completion “will provide a major boost to regional trade and transport connectivity.” Xinhua’s version has Li speaking of quality. Tashkent leads with speed, Xinhua with standards, and neither gives a cost or an opening date.
The readout listed priority areas including clean energy, chemicals, geology, car manufacturing, metallurgy, agriculture, digital technologies and robotics, plus peaceful nuclear energy, a field in which Uzbekistan’s first nuclear power plant is already under construction with Russia’s Rosatom, as TEH – The Eastern Herald reported in June. It also recorded Uzbekistan’s commitment to the One China policy.
The readout names no agreements signed at this meeting, referring only to those reached between the two leaders in Bishkek in August and to the firm agreements behind the project portfolio. Neither account says how much of the nearly $60 billion is already built, or when the railway is due to open.
