Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- Leaving the city of Tacheng and driving 12 kilometers west along a direct port road, you will find yourself in “Baktu”, the checkpoint between China and Kazakhstan. The Baktu checkpoint is the closest checkpoint to the city in Xinjiang; it is adjacent to the city of Tacheng from the east and is located 60 kilometers west of the city of Makanchi in the East Kazakhstan region of Kazakhstan.

Convenient transportation, unique geographical location and government support have made Baktu checkpoint known as the “Central Asian Trade Corridor”, which gives new impetus to the economic development of the Tacheng region. Every morning, refrigerators depart from there towards the border to maintain the freshness of food. Yu Yinping, being in charge of the local largest fruit and vegetable export base, has witnessed the development and changes of the Baktu checkpoint in recent years.

In 1992, the Baktu checkpoint opened for Chinese-Kazakh trade. Gradually, while studying the Central Asian market, Yu Yinping discovered that there was a shortage of fruits and vegetables in Kazakhstan, so the idea arose to create a company to export vegetables and fruits to Central Asian countries. Yu Yinping introduced a method of “management by tracking”, using digital code stickers to track the arrival information of each product. Farmer Tang Mingxue works in a vegetable greenhouse near Yu Yingping’s fruit and vegetable export base. He pastes a tracking code on each basket of vegetables, which, when scanned with a phone, shows the product’s place of origin, information about fertilizers and growing conditions. This way they guarantee standardization, safety and high quality of vegetable production.

Tang Mingxue said, “We have received fruit cultivation training from Yu Yinping’s company and implemented the ‘management by tracking’ system.” Through scientific cultivation, we have increased the yield and income from the colored peppers and tomatoes we grow. The quality of the products reached the standard, but this was followed by the problem of customs clearance at the checkpoint. Yu Yinping, pointing to a map on the wall, told reporters: “My company is only 8 kilometers from the Baktu checkpoint, and the checkpoint is only 8 kilometers from the nearest city of Baktu in Kazakhstan. But until 2013, it took three days to cover these 16 kilometers. For businessmen, product quality means money, but for agricultural products, every minute has a price.”

In 2013, the Baktu checkpoint became China’s first “green channel” for fast customs clearance of agricultural products. Customs clearance time has been reduced to 1 hour. This means that fruits and vegetables from Xinjiang, picked in the morning, can be delivered to supermarket shelves in Kazakhstan by the evening. In one day, products from Chinese farms reach the tables of Central Asia.

According to customs broker Liu Xilian, annual shipments have now risen from the previous 20,000-30,000 tons to nearly 200,000 tons. Fruits and vegetables from Xinjiang are available in many supermarkets in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. Nowadays, most customs clearance procedures can be completed online.

Currently, the Baktu checkpoint has become an important base for the production, processing, storage and export of fruits and vegetables from Xinjiang to Central Asian countries. Tachen County continues to strengthen support for Baktu checkpoints and raw material processing enterprises, and provides policy incentives and facilitation measures. At the same time, strengthens cooperation with other regions to promote the prosperity and development of the industrial and supply chain. According to Yu Yinping, he is expanding the scope of his business. Now he also imports good quality oilseeds from Central Asia and opens a salad oil processing plant.

Walking through the clean, bright factory floor, you can hear the continuous rumble of the hulling machine as a robotic arm places bags of sunflower seeds onto a track for packaging. Quality controller Zhaidar Sharatbek simultaneously checks the quality of sunflower seeds and takes notes.

She showed reporters the sunflower seeds that they import from Kazakhstan, they import 100 thousand tons per year and produce 30 thousand tons of salad oil annually.

(Li Mingfei, Chu Xu, Zhao Kai).