China has worked out policies to transform two western border towns into key financial and manufacturing hubs linking the country’s inland areas with Kazakhstan and Pakistan in particular.
The move is expected to bring prosperity to the relatively poor Xinjiang region and shift the country’s opening up strategy from focusing on eastern coastal regions to a more balanced approach that also emphasizes the landlocked west, the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) reported.
Kashgar, an ancient Silk Road town that borders Pakistan through the plateau of Pamirs, will become a regional logistics centre, a financial and trading hub, and a key processing centre for internationally traded goods, APP quoted Xinhua as saying.
China and Kazakhstan will be linked by a new rail and road at Horgos in early December, and a China-Kazakhstan free trade centre there is expected to start operation by the end of the year, an official said.
