Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday visited the Chinese national pavilion of the Astana Expo 2017 in Astana, Kazakhstan, accompanied by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.  

During the tour,  the two heads of state also experienced simulated driving in a high-speed rail. Xi invited Nazarbayev to a driving simulation. The G2017 train “traveled”, at a speed of around 300 kilometers per hour, from Xi’an in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province to the Expo site in Astana.

Xi urged bilateral efforts to facilitate more China-Kazakhstan cross-border transportation. 

For his part, Nazarbayev thanked Xi for coming to attend the Astana Expo, and for the Chinese support of this event.

The Kazakh-Chinese cooperation on cross-border transportation, a successful case of linking the two countries' development strategies, will bring economic prosperity and social well-being to those countries along the Belt and Road, said Nazarbayev.

In 2016, more than 1,200 trains transited through Kazakhstan, with freight handled by the two countries' railways reaching 8.2 million tons and the number of freight containers more than doubling.