Hu ends visit to Kazakhstan
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Chinese President Hu Jintao ended his visit to Kazakhstan Sunday and left Astana for Ashgabat, capital of Turkmenistan, to continue his two-nation tour of Central Asia.
Hu arrived in Astana Saturday for a working visit, his fourth one to Kazakhstan as head of state since 2003. He paid three state visits to Kazakhstan in 2003, 2005 and 2007.
In Astana, President Hu met his Kazakh counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev on the further development of the friendly and cooperative ties between their two nations.
Chinese diplomats said that the two leaders exchanged views on bilateral ties and major world and regional issues of common concern, and agreed to promote the China-Kazakhstan strategic partnership.
During the visit, the Chinese leader also attended an inauguration ceremony of the China-Kazakhstan natural gas pipeline, part of the China-Central Asia natural gas pipeline.
The China-Central Asia Pipeline starts at the border between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan and runs through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan before reaching the Chinese northwest region of Xinjiang.
President Hu and state leaders of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are scheduled to attend a ceremony marking the completion of one of the two pipelines which make up the project Monday.
In recent years, China and Kazakhstan have maintained frequent high-level contacts, deepened political mutual trust and expanded practical cooperation and collaboration. Pragmatic cooperation between the two countries has been fruitful.
In 2008, two-way trade between the two countries stood at 17.5 billion US dollars, up 26 percent from the previous year.
