Chinese President Hu Jintao held talks with Kazakh President Nazarbayev in the presidential residence in Astana

On the morning of July 4, 2005, Chinese President Hu Jintao who was on a state visit to Kazakhstan held talks with his Kazakh counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev in the presidential residence. The two heads of state expressed satisfaction with the steady development of bilateral relations, reached important consensus on further strengthening China-Kazakhstan friendly cooperation and decided to uplift the bilateral relations to the level of strategic partnership, which marks an important stage of development of China-Kazakhstan relations.

On behalf of the Kazakh government and people, Nazarbayev extended the warmest welcome to President Hu Jintao and stressed that to develop cooperation with China is the priority of Kazakhstan's foreign policy. He firmly believed that the important achievements of Hu's visit will strongly boost the progress of Kazakhstan-China strategic partnership.

Hu noted that China-Kazakhstan relations enjoy a sound momentum of development. The two countries are building up political mutual trust and render support to each other on the major issues concerning independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and national security. The Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation between China and Kazakhstan and the 2003-2008 China-Kazakhstan Cooperation Outline are being implemented comprehensively. The bilateral pragmatic cooperation has achieved fruitful results. In particular, the bilateral cooperation in such fields as economy and trade, energy and transportation gets increasingly deepened. The two countries coordinate closely in the multilateral frameworks including the United Nations, Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia, effectively safeguard their common interest and make their due contributions to promoting regional peace and development.

Today we signed the Joint Statement to set up and develop the China-Kazakhstan strategic partnership, which is of great significance to the long-term development of bilateral ties and maintaining peace and stability in the region as well, Hu told Nazarbayev.

Hu noted that this year the trade volume between China and Kazakhstan will exceed US$5 billion and realize the designated goal in advance, which is fairly encouraging. China and Kazakhstan enjoy great potentials of economic and trade cooperation. He suggests taking further measures to deepen cooperation. The trade structure should be constantly optimized and the proportion of products with high added value and technical content should be increased. The economic complementarities and geological advantages of the two countries should be fully tapped, the bilateral cooperation should be integrated with the multilateral cooperation within the framework of SCO and cooperation in such priority areas as energy, mineral resources development, science and technology, transportation, agriculture, telecom and project contracting should be stimulated. The trade and investment environment should be further improved and standardized and a transparent management system and effective bilateral cooperation and consultation mechanism should be built so as to push for the stable and coordinated development of bilateral pragmatic cooperation in compliance with international general practice and the characteristics of economic and trade relations between the two countries. Hu also indicated that China supports the accession of Kazakhstan to the World Trade Organization at the earliest date possible.

Nazarbayev said that the connotation of Kazakhstan-China cooperation gets increasingly enriched. Kazakhstan firmly supports the one-China policy and the Chinese Anti-Secession Law. Both sides have conducted close collaboration in fighting against the 'three forces' including terrorism. He expressed complete agreement upon President Hu's suggestions on further expanding economic and trade cooperation. Kazakhstan is accelerating the construction of the crude oil pipeline linking with China and hopes both sides launch new cooperation projects in the areas of energy, transportation and telecom and realize US$10 billion of bilateral trade volume by 2010 with joint efforts.

Hu also exchanged in-depth views with Nazarbayev on major international and regional issues. The leaders of the two countries agreed that all the central Asian countries face the formidable task of safeguarding security, maintaining stability and accelerating development. China and Kazakhstan will strengthen communications and collaboration and keep committed to protecting the permanent stability and sustainable development of the region.

Following the talks, the two heads of state signed the Joint Statement of the People's Republic of China and the Republic of Kazakhstan on the Establishment and Development of Strategic Partnership and jointly attended the signing ceremony of bilateral cooperation documents on mineral resources, water conservancy, electricity, communications and transportation. Later Hu and Nazarbayev met with journalists from China, Kazakhstan and other countries in the world and respectively introduced the bilateral relations, their talks and the important consensus reached between the two sides on consolidating and developing China-Kazakhstan strategic partnership. They both expressed full confidence in the promising prospects of bilateral strategic partnership.

State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan and Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Akhmetzhan Yesimov and Sauat Mynbaev were present at the talks and related activities.