TASHKENT, Oct. 18 -- Chinese Premier Li Qiang met Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev on Saturday and promised "high-quality" work on a shared railway and more trade. The only figures in the readouts came from the Uzbek side.

Li said China is ready to expand trade with Uzbekistan and to ensure the "high-quality implementation" of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway project, according to Xinhua. Beijing's report of the meeting carries no figures.

The numbers arrived in the Uzbek presidency's readout of the meeting, which said the portfolio of projects "backed by firm agreements has reached nearly $60 billion" and that "more than 6,000 joint ventures have been established so far." The readout does not say who tallied the total, over wh...