AKIPRESS.COM - China and Kazakhstan signed $2 billion in deals during a trip to the Central Asian country by the Communist Party boss of China's far western region of Xinjiang, state media said on Friday, as China promotes its new Silk Road initiative, Reuters reported Friday.

Restive Xinjiang, strategically located on the borders of Central Asia, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, is a key part of what Beijing officially refers to as its "one belt, one road" strategy to develop trade and transport links across Asia and beyond.

Visiting Kazakh capital Astana and commercial hub Almaty from May 1-4, Xinjiang's party chief and top official, Zhang Chunxian, said Xinjiang and Kazakhstan would both benefit from the new Silk Road, the official Xinjiang Daily said.

China was keen to get more Xinjiang companies to invest in Kazakhstan and was pleased with the warm reception the ones already in Kazakhstan had received, Zhang was quoted as saying.

He also visited the company which oversees the pumping of Central Asian gas into Xinjiang via Kazakhstan, the paper added.

Zhang then oversaw the signing of five energy, agriculture and industrial projects worth more than $2 billion, the report said.