BEIJING, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived in Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe on Tuesday for a state visit and a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) slated for Thursday.
The following is a brief introduction to the Central Asian country.
Tajikistan, officially named the Republic of Tajikistan, is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia with China bordering to the east, Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west and Kyrgyzstan to the north.
Tajikistan has a total area of 143,100 square km and a population of 7.03 million. Tajiks who speak the Tajik language are the main ethnic group, although there is a sizable minority of Uzbeks and a small population of Russians.
The official language of Tajikistan is Tajik while Russian is widely spoken in business and for government purposes.
Dushanbe is the capital city of the Central Asian country.
In recent years, the Tajik government adopted a series of policies and measures to boost the national economy and established a market-oriented economy. It also carried out privatization reforms.
In 2007, its GDP reached 3.712 billion U.S. dollars, growing 7.8 percent year on year.
Tajikistan has a great hydropower potential. It is home to the hydroelectric power station Nurek with the highest dam in the world. Its water reserves rank No. 8 on the world scale.
Tajikistan is also rich in silver reserves. The world's largest silver deposit is Big Kalemansur with an estimated reserve of 1 billion tons.
The industries of metallurgy, energy, construction materials, mechanics processing and manufacturing are important pillars of the national economy.
Since China and Tajikistan established diplomatic ties on Jan. 4, 1992, the two countries' friendly relations have developed steadily, with frequent exchanges of high-level visits.
The two-way trade increases as well. In 2007, the bilateral trade volume stood at 0.524 billion dollars. In the first half of this year, the trade volume topped 0.282 billion dollars.
