Kazakhstan, China MPs praise level of strategic partnership

ASTANA. KAZINFORM - Majilis Speaker of Kazakhstan Nurlan Nigmatulin met on Monday with Vice Chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China Alecken Eminbahe in Astana, Kazinform has learnt from the chamber's press service.

During the meeting the sides discussed the most relevant issues of Kazakh-Chinese cooperation, including the inter-parliamentary interaction.

Speaker Nigmatulin praised the level of strategic partnership between the two nations giving credit to Kazakh and Chinese leaders Nursultan Nazarbayev and Xi Jinping for mutual efforts to develop it. According to him, the upcoming state visit of President Nazarbayev to China will give a new impulse to the development of bilateral cooperation.

Alecken Eminbahe, in turn, said that the Chinese side looks forward to Nazarbayev's visit and attaches great importance to it. Reciprocal top-level meetings demonstrate high level and unique character of Kazakh-Chinese relations, he added.

Nurlan Nigmatulin continued by reminding that presently Kazakhstan and China work to harmonize the One Road, One Belt Initiative spearheaded by Xi Jinping and Kazakhstan's Nurly Zhol program. In his words, Kazakhstan is interested in implementation of joint projects in digital, transport and logistics and robotics spheres.

He also added that Astana and Beijing closely cooperate within many multilateral platforms, including the UN, SCO and CICA.

Nigmatulin and Eminbahe agreed to step up inter-parliamentary relations as an important component of strategic partnership between the two countries. It was noted that over the past five years there have been held eight reciprocal visits of Kazakhstani and Chinese parliamentarians within the framework of the memorandum of cooperation.