On September 7, 2013, President Xi Jinping made a speech titled "Promote People-to-People Friendship and Create a Better Future" at Kazakhstan's Nazarbayev University. He spoke highly of the traditional friendship between China and Kazakhstan and gave a comprehensive elaboration of China's policy of good-neighborly and friendly cooperation with countries in Central Asia. He proposed to join hands in building a Silk Road economic belt with innovative cooperation mode and to make it a grand cause benefiting people in regional countries along the route. Kazakhstan became the country for the initiation of the Belt and Road Initiative.