On Thursday November 2, President Emomali Rahmon received the member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China also the Communist Party Secretary of China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), Ma Xingrui.
The Tajik president’s official website says the parties discussed favorable opportunities for expansion of bilateral cooperation between Tajikistan and China in promising sectors such as digital and green economy, hydropower, rehabilitation and construction of roads in Tajikistan.
Rahmon and Ma reportedly exchanged views on a wide range of issues “related to cooperation within the framework of comprehensive strategic partnership.
Emomali Rahmon noted positive dynamics in expansion of bilateral cooperation between the two countries in the fields of politics, investment, energy, agriculture and so forth.
The parties reportedly noted the significance of the Kulma border crossing point (BCP) for creation of favorable conditions for transportation of goods between the two countries.
Rahmon expressed interest in further expansion of cooperation with Xinjiang-based state-run companies and business circles, according to the Tajik president’s official website.
In this context, the parties found it useful to hold the next meeting of the Tajikistan-Xinjiang sub-commission and a forum of entrepreneurs of the two countries in Dushanbe today.
Rahmon and Ma also discussed issues of inter-party ties and some other topics being of mutual interest. .
Ma Xingrui (born October 1959) is a Chinese politician and aerospace engineer who is the Communist Party secretary of Xinjiang. Prior to that, he had served as the Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology, Head of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission of Guangdong, Communist Party Secretary of Shenzhen, Deputy Party Secretary of Guangdong, and Governor of Guangdong. Ma is a member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party. Ma is recognized as one of China's top scientists. He had previously served as Vice President of Harbin Institute of Technology, General Manager of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, and Director of the China National Space Administration.
The Kulma BCP is the only overland border crossing along the 450-kilometer boundary between Tajikistan’s Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) and China’s XUAR.
Opened in 2004, the Tajik-China trade route runs from Khorog, the capital of Gorno Badakhshan in southeastern Tajikistan, over a high-altitude plateau and then down into China, where it ends in the city of Kashgar, 700 kilometers away.
As conditions are so tough at the Kulma border crossing, which is located on a mountain pass 4,400 meters high, until May 1 2008, the gateway had stayed open only 15 days out of every month, while from November through April it had been closed altogether.
From 2008 to 2012, the Kulma crossing operated every day, except weekends, from May through November.
Tajikistan and China reached an agreement on a year-round operation of the Kulma border-crossing checkpoint on December 29, 2011 but it became possible only in 2012, when all necessary conditions were created to ensure the year-round operation of the Kulma border crossing.
The Kulma Pass is a mountain pass across the Pamir Mountains on the border between Tajikistan’s GBAO and the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China. Asian Highway AH66 runs through the pass.
The pass opens from the north to the southeast, and is 500 m wide from north to south and 1 km in length from east to west with a gentle incline not exceeding 20 degrees. On the Tajik side, the pass is 80 km by road to Murgab. On the Chinese side, the pass is 13.9 km from Karasu, a port of entry on the Karakorum Highway which leads to Tashkurgan (60–70 km) and Kashgar (220 km).
