The official, who requested anonymity, said President Islam Karimov had signed a decree last week outlining the tasks of the joint venture, in which Beijing and Tashkent will have equal stakes.

The plans by energy-hungry China and the Central Asian states would break Russia's virtual monopoly on transit of Turkmen gas.

CNPC secured a 30 year gas-import deal with Turkmenistan last July.

The Uzbek-Chinese venture venture, named Asia Trans Gas, would build the 530 kilometre (330 mile) pipeline section from the Turkmen border across Uzbek territory to the Kazakh border, from where it would go on to western China, official press reports have said.

A first pipeline, including one compressor station, is to be built by the end of 2009 and a second by the end of 2011.

Uzbekistan signed an agreement last year with China on building a pipeline with a capacity of 30 billion cubic metres for shipping Turkmen gas.

Uzbekistan's reclusive neighbour Turkmenistan has gas reserves estimated to be about the 10th largest in the world but almost all its export pipelines pass across Russian territory, limiting the Turkmen leadership's room for manoeuvre.

However China is showing an increasing appetite for Central Asian energy resources.

European Union officials were also in Turkmenistan last week and secured agreement that the country should start furnishing supplies to the EU, European officials said.

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