Trade ties blossom as govt contacts increase

URUMQI, Xinjiang - The growth of Xinjiang Sanbao Industry Group, one of the biggest trade companies in northwestern China, has mirrored the development of China's relations with Central Asia over the past two decades.

Since its establishment in 1992, around the same time as China was establishing ties with the newly independent former Soviet republics of Central Asia, Xinjiang Sanbao has risen from a small cross-border barter trade firm to a conglomerate whose trade volume reached $871 million last year.

The company not only out-performed thousands of small Chinese cross-border trade companies that emerged in the 1990s after the breakup of the Soviet Union, but also survived the ups and downs in the region.