Nursultan Nazarbayev meets with Governor General of Canada

ASTANA. KAZINFORM - Head of State Nursultan Nazarbayev has held a meeting today with Julie Payette, Governor General of Canada, Kazinform has learnt from the Akorda press service.

President Nazarbayev greeted the Governor General of Canada and noted that her first official visit to Kazakhstan had coincided with successful launch of Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques from the Baikonur cosmodrome.

"I think it is of paramount importance to you because you had completed two spaceflights yourself," Nursultan Nazarbayev told the Canadian politician and former Canadian Astronaut Corps member.

The Kazakh President continued by pointing to the fact that it has been 26 years since Kazakhstan and Canada established diplomatic relations and lauded positive trends in the sphere of mutual trade and investment.



The Governor General of Canada, in turn, thanked for the opportunity to pay the official visit to Kazakhstan and reminded that she had been to the Baikonur cosmodrome before.

"Tomorrow we will visit the National Space Center. We hope that the memorandum of mutual understanding between the National Space Center and the Canadian Space Agency will be a fruitful one," Julie Payette added.

She emphasized that Canada fully supports the anti-nuclear initiatives of the President of Kazakhstan.

In conclusion, the sides discussed the issues of cooperation in education, science, agriculture and more. It was noted that the visit will help further cement mutually profitable cooperation between Kazakhstan and Canada.