During an official meeting with this Kazakh counterpart, Nursultan Nazarbayev, Putin welcomed the development of bilateral relations and, in particular, said the two countries' scientific communities had a great deal to offer. He said Russia was in favor of increased cooperation in the nuclear energy sphere.
In addition, the president said that joint oil production enterprises would start working after technical issues were settled.
"We have proposals on cooperation in this sphere," Putin said. "It is an interesting form of cooperation from the economic point of view, as well as from the standpoint of developing relations in high technologies sphere."
Russia's leading independent crude producer, LUKoil, is a major investor in Kazakhstan and company president Vagit Alekperov said Wednesday that the major was intending to expand its operations in the republic. In 2004, it invested $4 billion in Kazakhstan and was the fourth largest producer.
Putin said the two countries still had to settle issues concerning electric energy and oil transit, but had already achieved a high level of cooperation.
