Dynamic site of SCO Summit illustrates benefits of trade

"Those new varieties of potatoes have better resistance to drought and diseases. They are popular among local farmers because they have higher output volume than traditional varieties in Kazakhstan," said Hu Baigeng, general manager of Xisen.

Hu also said Xisen has signed cooperation agreements with institutes in Kazakhstan to deepen potato-growing research in fields such as drought resistance and stress resistance.

In 2017, the value of Shandong's agricultural products exported to and imported from SCO countries was 11.07 billion yuan. In addition to that commitment, Shandong also exported some of its advanced agricultural machines and technologies to those countries.

Agreements have been signed with many countries along the Belt and Road such as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to promote bilateral technologies commercialization and trade. Shandong will also organize companies to participate in exhibitions, launch product demonstrations and sales centers and build warehouses in SCO countries.

The China-Asia Express Rail was launched in Qingdao in July 2015 to better connect Shandong with surrounding countries and regions. After a few years' network expansion, nine cities including Weifang, Qingdao and Linyi have launched such transportation services.

China-Asia Express Rail service made its debut in Jinan, capital of Shandong, on April 13. The first train, which carried 54 containers, took 13 days to arrive in Uzbekistan, compared to about 20 days in traditional transportation mode. Shandong used to send goods to central Asian countries via road transport, which took a much longer time than train.

Shandong now has eight international freight train service routes. In the first quarter of 2018, China-Asia Express Rail made 56 journeys and China-European Express Rail has made 14 journeys from their points of origin in Shandong.

Aiming to promote industrial cluster development in foreign countries, Shandong has built nine economic and trade cooperative zones. Among these, Pakistan Haier and Ruba Economic Zone, China-Russia Tomsk State Wood Industry and Trade Cooperation Zone, Central European Trade and Logistics Cooperation Center in Hungry and the Sino-Hungarian Borsod Industrial Zone are national-level industrial parks.