BEIJING, July 17 (Xinhua) -- China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the country's largest oil producer, announced Tuesday that it will import 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas each year through the planned Central Asia Gas Pipeline for 30 years from Turkmenistan.

    Witnessed by Chinese President Hu Jintao and visiting Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, CNPC signed the Amudariya River gas production sharing contract and gas sales and purchase agreement with The State Agency For the Management And Use Of Hydrocarbon Resources of Turkmenistan and Turkmen gas here on Tuesday.

    Both countries signed a general agreement on gas cooperation in April 2006.

    The signing of the two agreements is a substantial step forward to materialize the general agreement, indicating that gas cooperation between the two countries had entered a new stage, said CNPC in its news release.

    The planning of Central Asia Gas Pipeline, actively supported by Central Asia countries, would be conducive to the collaboration and development of Central Asia, said CNPC.

    Berdymukhammedov said previously that Turkmenistan has sufficient natural gas resources to supply China, Iran and other markets.

    China aims to slash its energy consumption per 10,000 yuan of GDP by 20 percent by 2010 so natural gas, seen as an ideal way to meet this target, is in huge demand nationwide.

    China's first west-east gas pipeline went into commercial operation at the end of 2004, extending 4,000 kilometers from the Tarim Basin of Xinjiang and Shanghai.

    The CNPC has planned to build a second west-east natural gas pipeline from 2008 to 2010, which will run 6,500 kilometers from northwest China's gas-rich Xinjiang to the populous southern province of Guangdong, carrying 30 billion cubic meters of gas a year.