Tajik President Emomali Rahmon yesterday made a stopover in Urumqi, the capital of China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), on his way from Xiamen, where he attended the 2017 2017 BRICS summit, according to the Tajik president’s official website.
While in Urumqi, Rahmon held talks with Chen Quanguo, Communist Party Secretary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and Shohrat Zakir, Chairman of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
The sides reportedly expressed satisfaction with the current level of bilateral cooperation between Tajikistan and China, which is based on principle of mutual confidence and support. They confirmed their interest in further expansion of cooperation between the two countries at all levels.
They, in particular, noted that intensification of activity of Tajikistan-Xinjiang sub-commission on trade and economic cooperation and successful implementation of an agreement on cooperation between Tajikistan and XUAR were an important means of further development bilateral relations.
They also pointed to the necessity of expanding bilateral cooperation in trade, banking sector, industry, agriculture, science, culture, and tourism.
The sides also discussed issues related to training personnel for Tajikistan’s economy in XUAR higher educational institutions.
Chen Quanguo (born November 1955) is a Chinese politician and current Communist Party Secretary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Originally from Henan province, Chen was among the first batch of students to graduate university after the resumption of Gaokao examinations in 1978. Chen worked up the ranks in the party bureaucracy his home province from a minor local official to the deputy provincial party chief. In 2009, he became Governor of Hebei, then in 2011, he became the party secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Region. Chen became the Communist Party Secretary of Xinjiang in August 2016.
Shohrat Zakir (born August 1953), is a Chinese politician of Uyghur origin and, since December 2014, the Chairman of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and the deputy party chief of Xinjiang. He was born in Yining (Ghulja). He went to Tianjin University. He was the former Mayor of Urumqi. He studied computer science in Hubei province.
