ASTANA, January 12 (RIA Novosti) - The leaders of Russia and Kazakhstan have started an official meeting in Astana.
Before the meeting, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev thanked his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, for attending his inauguration as president on Wednesday.
Nazarbayev said, "Your attendance raised Kazakhstan's prestige in the world."
The Kazakh president said that he would pay the first official visit of his new term to Russia and added that Putin's current visit to Kazakhstan would take bilateral relations to a higher level.
Putin congratulated Nazarbayev on his landslide victory in the country's presidential election in December. Nazarbayev, who has held power since he became secretary of the regional Communist Party in 1989, was reelected to serve another seven years as president of Kazakhstan in December.
Putin said Russian observers had attended all rounds of the elections and the convincing victory illustrated Kazakhstan's political stability. In fact, the republic has also enjoyed dynamic economic growth in the last few years on the back of high oil prices, and gross domestic product is expected to continue growing at around the rate of 9% in 2006.
The Russian president said that the meeting was highly significant as the two countries had serious joint work ahead of them. Putin said the establishment of a joint bank to encourage investment in the former Soviet Union, an idea proposed by the Kazakh president two years ago, was one such area.
"The joint bank with a [capital of] $1.5 billion will certainly bolster our relations," Putin said.
The presidents are set to discuss cooperation in the energy sector and in the peaceful use of the nuclear energy. They will also discuss issues concerning cooperation within regional associations, such as the six-member Collective Security Treaty Organization, as well as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which also includes China.
After the meeting the presidents will exchange certificates on the ratification of a treaty delineating the Russian-Kazakh border. Signed in January 2005 in Moscow, it officially sets out the world's longest land border at 7,500 kilometers (4,700 miles) and was ratified by the parliaments of the two countries in November 2005.
