(LAN HONGGUANG)

(RAO AIMIN)

Chinese President Hu Jintao, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov (third left), Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev (left) and Uzbek President Islam Karimov (right) attend the inauguration ceremony of the China-Central Asia natural gas pipeline in Turkmenistan on December 14.

The 1,833-km pipeline starts at the Turkmen-Uzbek border, running through central Uzbekistan and south Kazakhstan before reaching northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Turkmenistan predicts it can supply to China annually 40 billion cubic meters of natural gas through the pipeline in the next 30 years. China consumed 77.8 billion cubic meters of natural gas last year.

Below: Heads of state of the four countries turn on the China-Central Asia gas pipeline