China and Turkmenistan are discussing cooperation documents on jointly building the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, said Chinese Ambassador to Turkmenistan Sun Weidong during an interview on July 18 with Chinese media in Ashkhabad, the capital of Turkmenistan, the 21st Century Economic Herald reports.

The two countries are enhancing efforts to make an alignment between their development plans and increasingly expand cooperation in various areas, according to Sun.

Sun noted that the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative and the Turkmenistan-proposed "revival of the ancient Silk Route" are highly compatible.

Currently, the two countries are advancing work in the following three aspects under the framework of the initiative, so as to inject new impetus into the bilateral economic and trade cooperation: formulating specific plans and tapping trade cooperation potential, enhancing facilities connectivity to reduce trade costs and boosting two-way investment and project cooperation, Sun elaborated.

Sun said that apart from energy cooperation, the two countries can tap cooperation potential in the five areas: processing manufacturing, infrastructure, S&T innovation, agricultural technologies and tourism.

As a country along the Belt and Road routes, Turkmenistan was one of the earliest countries to show its support for the initiative.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Turkmenistan and the two countries lifted their ties to a strategic partnership in 2013.

Between 2011 and 2016, China was Turkmenistan's largest trading partner for six consecutive years, and Turkmenistan was China's second largest trading partner in Central Asia.