Chinese President Xi Jinping will make his first visit to India as head of state on a regional visit starting this week which will also take in Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Tajikistan, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
Xi will begin his trip in Tajikistan where he will attend a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization on Thursday and Friday, the ministry said, according to Reuters.
China, Russia and four Central Asian nations - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan - formed the group in 2001 as a regional security bloc to fight threats posed by extremism and drug trafficking from neighboring Afghanistan.
After that Xi will travel to the Maldives, Sri Lanka and India, on a visit which ends on Sept. 19, the ministry said.
