Cordially greeting the guests the Turkmen leader focused with satisfaction on the high level of Turkmen-Japanese partnership successfully maintained in a broad range of the fields including the deliveries of high-powered road-building and earth-moving machinery. Expressing belief that a regular meeting of the bilateral committee for economic co-operation would offer a powerful incentive to intensify effective collaboration Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov noted that this co-operation was regarded as of paramount importance and very promising basing on its profound potential and experience of many years as well as the large-scale reform programmes implemented in Turkmenistan.

The IMF experts highly appreciated Turkmenistan’s steps towards implementation of the large-scale economic reforms initiated in the interests of the Turkmen state and the people and aimed at ensuring the country’s successful integration into the global economic system.

The contrcats conlcuded in the hard currency totalled over US$ 297.204 million. The businessmen from Germany, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Great Britain, Iran, Cyprus and the Virgin Islands bought hydrotreated diesel fuel, L-0.2-62 diesel fuel, aviation kerosene, liquefied gas produced at the Turkmenbashi oil refineries. The buyers from Singapore concluded the contracts for diesel fuel produced at the Seydi oil refinery. The businessmen from Great Britain, Singapore, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland, Turkey, Cyprus, Russia, Ukraine, the Seychelles, the Marshall Islands and the Virgin Islands bought ginned cotton, sulfuric acid, Portland cement, cotton yarn, wadding, cotton spinning waste.

The first official visit of President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan has started on April 28.

Marking a new page in the history of the Turkmen-Afghan relations the Turkmen leader’s visit takes place against the background of the intergovernmental dialogue noticeably intensified and enhanced by the agreements achieved during the top-level bilateral talks last summer. During the official visit of President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai to Ashgabat the partners reaffirmed mutual endeavours to establish fruitful co-operation meeting the interests of the region. The dialogue was continued during the leaders’ meeting at the NATO Summit in Bucharest.

Pursuing the policy of good neighbourliness and wide international co-operation from the first days of independence Turkmenistan assigns a special role in the foreign policy strategy to its southern neighbour, with whom it has the long border - over 900 kilometres as well as the centuries-old ties of friendship and fraternity of the Turkmen and the Afghan peoples.