China will provide nearly $300 million in credit to help Kyrgyzstan build a strategic road for trade, the ex-Soviet state said Tuesday, as part of Beijing's grand vision to improve transport links across the region. The allocation from state-run Export-Import bank is part of an $850-million project to create a new North-South route in the Central Asian nation, tying in with China's New Silk Road Economic Belt infrastructure projects across Eurasia.
An agreement for the latest phase of construction of the road, which will connect with Kyrgyz roads into Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, was struck at the third co-operation forum between China and the five ex-communist states of Central Asia in the Chinese city of Rizhao on Tuesday. In a government press release Deputy Prime Minister Valery Dil, who attended the forum, said Kyrgyzstan "is ready to make all efforts to deepen and consolidate relations" with China.