YANG Ruiqing, head of the Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Bureau of Altay, Xin-jiang, got a call from Kazakhstan on the first of June this year. "Our vegetable supplies are low, pushing the prices sky high. Would you mind giving a produce fair by the end of the month to cool down the market a bit?" At the other end of the line was Chief of the Foreign Trade Administration for East Kazakhstan State. Before the local harvest season, vegetables there are always several times more expensive than those in neighboring Xinjiang. Yang routinely receives calls for help from his Kazakhstani counterpart at this time of the year.