China Offers Financial Assistance to Crisis-Hit Kazakhstan

China has offered Kazakhstan a multi-billion dollar investment package, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has revealed.

Members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) should help each other out during the global financial crisis, he told reporters following a session of the National People's Congress held in Beijing on March 13. "We are neighbors, and every member state has its own advantages. So we can make it through the financial crisis via cooperation," the official Chinese news agency Xinhua quoted the premier as saying.

The proposed assistance agreement covers financial services and natural resources. The SCO was established in 2001 and includes China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.