Ashgabat/Turkmenistan: China President Hu Jintao arrived in Turkmenistan today after wrapped up his tightly schedule one day visit to Kazakhstan.

He will hold bilateral talks with Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov and Uzbekistan president Islam Karimov, who is also visiting the country now.

Hu will also join the heads of three Central Asian countries, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, in attending the official opening ceremony of the China-Central Asian gas pipeline tomorrow.

The pipeline, stretching 1,833-kilometre-long (1,139-mile), is China’s first transnational ground gas pipeline.

It threads through Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan before coming into western China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region.