President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, called for an early start to work on the China-Russia west route natural gas pipeline as they met for the fourth time this year on Thursday.

Both countries should continue boosting major projects, especially the west route natural gas pipeline, to take their cooperation in energy to a higher level, Xi told Putin at a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

Calling the west route project a mutually beneficial one, Putin said that he attached great importance to it and that construction should be speeded up.