【Record】H.E. Mr. Parakhat Durdyev, Ambassador of the Republic of Turkmenistan to China，Delivers a Speech in an In-Depth Discussion on "Reorienting Tourism Investment and Recasting the Industry"

H.E. Mr. Parakhat Durdyev, Ambassador of the Republic of Turkmenistan to China

Moderator: Distinguished guests, panelists will conduct an in-depth discussion on "Reorienting Tourism Investment and Recasting the Industry". Three parts will be included, such as self-introduction, Q&A and a short summary section.

The first section is about self-introduction. Please briefly introduce yourself and the institution that you are working for. Besides, your feeling and expectation towards the conference should be given. All these should be stated in 2 minutes.

H.E. Mr. Parakhat Durdyev: Good afternoon! Thank you very much, moderator. I'm Parakhat Durdyev, Ambassador of the Republic of Turkmenistan to China. I'm here in China since January 2019. My first tour to China happened almost 20 years ago in 2000. I was having a one-year stay in the embassy here. Since 2001 until 2019, I had no idea I would come into China. In 2018, I heard I would get the new job. I'm really happy to accept the job. Since I've seen China some 20 years ago, I've seen such a large, big or even comprehensive change in the way the country works. Since the beginning of this year, we're all sitting under the massive pressure. With the achievements and the efforts made by the country in fighting with the global nightmare, I can be assured that I'll be safe here, and probably the same to everyone who lives in China.

As for my country, it's only 29 years old. On September 27 this year, we celebrated our 29th anniversary. This year we have a major event that is the 25th anniversary of our neutrality. Neutrality for us is everything. It's the second most important national holiday which has made its way in our constitution. Neutrality gave us such a big impetus in development that allowed us to avoid any problems while becoming a self-sufficient nation at the moment. Probably there's a time that I can talk about this. Now, I'd like to say that I'm really happy to be a part of this conference today, because we can see that a country as China is able to do more, do greater and achieve even greater high. I'm happy to be a part of it. Thank you.

Moderator: Then, we'll move on to the second section of Q&A. Mr. Ambassador, may I ask two questions? Can you expound on the development of tourism in your country in the past 5 to 10 years? Does Turkmenistan have a plan to receive more tourists in the future? Thank you!

H.E. Mr. Parakhat Durdyev: First of all, let me express my sincere gratefulness to World Tourism Cities Federation for inviting me to be here. At the same time. I also like to thank the federation for accepting my capital city, Ashkhabad, as another member. And back in May, we started the process and we got the electronic certificate of becoming a member. Although the pandemic is affecting our business, we are very optimistic and looking forward to more cooperation with each other.

Ashkhabad is a relatively young city and it has a history of almost 130 years. Recently, an event has been hosted by our city. Many international agreements and contracts are signed here, so these documents were named after the city. In recent years, Turkmenistan managed to and invested in many sectors, specifically in the development of the infrastructure. Infrastructure is mainly in logistic and transportation, airports, seaports, culture and civilization, and agriculture and many other areas, where we thought that is our best position that we have. These also gave us the opportunity to develop national economy in different areas. In our country, the small and medium sized private companies are playing major roles in the process of development. The country has potentials in many ways. Many things, like carpet, were listed on the UNESCO World Heritage. Similarly, the horse that was the essence of our connections with China back to the Western Han dynasty. The horses are of the same degree of attention that we pay in our relations because of the love from the Chinese people.

Our country is located in the desert, which means that we are lack of water. We love water, and our people cherish water. The tourism sector in Turkmenistan develops rapidly. Caspian Sea has 16 kilometers of seashore where we built a tourist area. We establish a gorgeous tourist attraction in the desert. Our country has several architectural wonders of the world with a long history about 5000 years. These buildings are having their part in the history of civilization from Southern India to Caspian Sea.

The bilateral relationship between China and Turkmenistan is crucial. And generally, the energy is our mainstay because China imports our natural gas. The natural gas has also made it possible for our country to diversify the local economy and stay away from pollutions to some extent. In fact, we have several rounds of export events organized in China. We have signed contracts with the local companies. The cooperation may not be on a large scale, but is relatively comfortable for us.

Speaking of desert, I think desert is a significant place. We are preparing our Karakum Desert to become one of the listed UNESCO Natural and Cultural Heritage. In the past 10 years, we have held two major rallies. People enjoyed the beautiful landscapes in the desert. We held an event last year. Our government has decided to enlarge economic activities to attract foreign capital with a special project until 2025. China plays a very important role in the project. We would like to continue the cooperation, and I hope that we would be able to restore the flights to China after restraining the pandemic.

When it comes to the second question about what we have in hands to combat COVID-19, I'd like to tell you that we have an emergency plan. At present, Turkmenistan is one of the luckiest countries in the world to avoid the emergency. It's an achievement itself, but we have put enormous efforts to prevent it from happening. We have to reduce the number of foreigners to arrive in our country. But now, gradually, as the situation is improved, we believe that we will be able to continue our international communication and exchanges. As we all know, our country is sitting exactly on the crossroad of the great Silk Road. A few months ago, we started paying attention to the fact that the world has put efforts to prevent and control the pandemic. We have employed strict measures. Under the minister's guidance, we have set up a response team which aims to avoid imported coronavirus cases and prevent those cases from spreading in our country. The Health Ministry, as the leading ministry, should take its responsibilities. The response team consists of 22 dedicated government officials and experts who come from different ministries and commissions. They work hard and have made some progress.

The new semester has just started. Students in Turkmenistan go to school as usual. Colleges, universities, secondary and primary schools are open. Restrictions also exist in our country. I heard others talk about restrictions on international travel today, which is the same in Turkmenistan. We abide by advices given by the WTO. I’'ve mentioned our neutrality in my self-introduction, which is very important. Turkmenistan became independent in 1991. We have regarded the Day of Neutrality as a national holiday since 2017, which has been admitted by the UN. Staying neutral is a crucial national strategy. We cherish our stance as a neutralized state. We hope that we can try our best to maintain the world peace and stability.

That's all. Probably I can add some details when we are in the final round of discussion.