China, Central Asia witness deepened economic, trade ties

BEIJING -- China and Central Asia have seen their economic and trade ties continue to strengthen with trade among them growing rapidly for more than a decade.

Data released Sunday by the General Administration of Customs showed China's trade with the five Central Asian countries had expanded from 312.04 billion yuan ($43.48 billion) in 2013 to 674.15 billion yuan in 2024, representing an increase of 116 percent.

During this period, the average annual growth rate of China's trade with these countries was 7.3 percent -- 2.3 percentage points higher than the average annual growth rate of China's overall trade during the same period.

In the first five months of 2025, China's trade with these countries reached 286.42 billion yuan, up 10.4 percent year on year, and setting a new record high for this period.

China has been actively exploring the potential for cooperation with Central Asia in the agricultural sector, and an increasing number of green and high-quality agricultural products from Central Asia are entering the Chinese market.

In the January-May period, China imported agricultural products worth 4.36 billion yuan from the five countries, an increase of 26.9 percent. Among these, imports of linseed from Kazakhstan soared 202.1 percent, imports of raisins from Uzbekistan grew 153.7 percent, and honey imports from Kyrgyzstan recorded a 10.9-fold increase.

Thanks to improved land transportation channels, road transport had facilitated 51.8 percent of China's trade with the five Central Asian countries in 2024 -- increasing sharply from 19.9 percent in 2020, the data revealed.