China wants to expand energy cooperation with Turkmenistan, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Saturday.

Wang met with his counterpart Rashid Meredov, who is also vice president of Turkmenistan, on the sidelines of the China-Central Asia foreign ministers’ meeting in Chengdu, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Wang also said China is willing to further expand the scale of trade and investment cooperation with Turkmenistan and will encourage more Chinese companies to invest in the country.

The meeting, which ends Sunday, also brought together the foreign ministers of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, Central Asian partners that are growing in importance for China.

Wang also met with Jeenbek Kulubaev, the foreign minister of Kyrgyzstan, a key player in an $8 billion railway project that begins in Kashgar in Xinjiang and runs through southwest Kyrgyzstan before ending in Andijan, in eastern Uzbekistan.

The rail project is designed to reduce the freight journey between China and Europe by 900 km (560 miles), providing a faster and cheaper alternative to existing China-Europe land routes, most of which pass through Russia .