IRU visits China Pavilion in Astana for joint push on OBOR

IRU President Christian Labrot confirms IRU’s commitment to China’s Belt and Road initiatives (OBOR) at meetings with Yao Rui, Executive Director of the China Pavilion at Astana Expo 2017.

Themed “Future Energy, Green Silk Road”, the pavilion showcases the country’s advanced technologies on new energy and sustainable development – with trade as the key driver. The meetings focused on how efficient movement across China-Eurasia borders will establish a sustainable “Silk Road economic belt”. 

IRU has already formed a solid partnership with the pavilion host, China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) – a national foreign trade and investment promotion agency – with the recent signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on the mutual promotion of trade facilitation.

Mr Yao, who is an official at CCPIT, welcomed Mr Labrot’s assurance of continued collaboration with both China and the Expo host country – Kazakhstan. 

State leaders of China and Kazakhstan attach great importance to China's participation in the Expo, given the strategic importance of bilateral relations, noting Kazakhstan as the crucial intersection between China and other Eurasian transit countries under OBOR.

China President, Xi Jinping, and his Kazakh counterpart, Nursultan Nazarbayev, visited the China Pavilion in June 2017.

After the bilateral meeting at the pavilion, the IRU delegation toured the China exhibit, which is part of the World Expo – a large-scale international exhibition on new ideas and new thinking, involving a number of countries and international organisations.