China-Eurasia Expo opens in Urumqi

URUMQI - The second China-Eurasia Expo, a six-day international fair, opened on Sunday in the northwestern Chinese city of Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, along with several foreign leaders, attended the opening ceremony of the expo.

The expo is scheduled from September 2 to 7.

The expo was upgraded from a regional trade fair, the 19-year-old China Urumqi Foreign Economic Relations and Trade Fair, in September 2011 when the first expo was held.

The expo strives to become an ideal cooperation platform for Eurasian region by using the geographic advantage of Xinjiang.

At the invitation of the expo's organizing committee, President of Kyrgystan Almazbek Atambayev, President of the Maldives Mohammed Waheed Hassan, Prime Minister of Cambodia Hun Sen, Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Karim Massimov, Prime Minister of Tajikistan Akil Akilov, Second Vice President of Afghanistan Mohammad Khalili and Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey Ali Babacan will attend the expo, according to a press release from the Foreign Ministry on Saturday.

Organizers have confirmed that 55 countries and regions, six international organizations, including United Nations Development Program and United Nations Industrial Development Organization, will attend the expo.

"Xinjiang's special location at the heartland of Eurasia has given the expo an irreplaceable competitive edge," said Li Jingyuan, secretary of the expo's secretariat.

Xinjiang, which covers one-sixth of China's landmass, borders key regional players including Kazakhstan and Pakistan. But regional economic activity has been slow partly due to poor infrastructure along the typically harsh terrain of the border region.

"Through the platform of expo, investors and business runners can find in Xinjiang a paramount springboard to reach out to the vast Eurasian land," said Li.

The first expo witnessed the signing of 178 contracts from domestic enterprises to invest in Xinjiang with a total value of 185 billion yuan (29.14 billion US dollars), as well as 5.5 billion U.S. dollars in foreign trade contracts, according to the organizers.