Uzbekistan and China signed dozens of documents Monday aimed at boosting Chinese investment in the ex-Soviet republic by 150 million dollars, Uzbek state media said. The agreements, which include investment deals in the oil and gas, information and telecommunication sectors, were signed during a visit to the central Asian republic by Chinese Vice Prime Minister Wu Yi.
They include a 106-million-dollar (89-million-euro) deal on oil production and exploring, in which China's Sinopec pledged to invest 50 million dollars to renovate old oil wells in the eastern regions of Andijan and Namangan in the Fergana valley.
Another 56 million dollars is to be invested in exploration works in the same region over the next five years, according to officials from Uzbekneftegaz, the nation's main oil and gas company.
China, along with Russia, has supported Uzbekistan in its stance against Western pressure to allow an international probe into the May killings in its eastern city of Andjian.
China was the first country that Uzbekistan's hard-line President Islam Karimov visited after the May 13 violence, during which Uzbek security forces killed between 200 and 800 people, many of them civilians, according to independent activists and rights groups. A 600-million-dollar joint energy venture agreement between Uzbekneftegaz and the China National Petroleum Corp was signed following that visit.