The memorandums were signed during a session of a working group on the development of Kazakhstan's nuclear energy chaired by Kazakh Prime Minister Danial Akhmetov and Russian nuclear chief Sergei Kiriyenko.
Kiriyenko, the head of the Federal Agency for Nuclear Power, said the signing of these documents was an important stage of cooperation in the nuclear sphere and "real steps toward the joint development of uranium production and enrichment in Russia."
Akhmetov said the first venture on designing new reactors was the most important and Kazakhstan was planning to export products of joint ventures.
Techsnabexport, Russia's state-controlled uranium supplier and provider of uranium enrichment services, already holds a 49.33% stake in a joint venture set up in 2004 in the south of mineral-rich Kazakhstan. It is exploring a uranium ore deposit with estimated reserves of 19,000 metric tons of uranium in Zarechnoye near the border with Central-Asian neighbors Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Kiriyenko said July 15 that the first international uranium enrichment center would be established in Angarsk in southeast Siberia's Irkutsk Region.
"One of the elements of convergence [in the initiatives] is the idea to create international centers. We will begin with an international center for uranium enrichment," he said.
Kiriyenko described the international uranium enrichment center in Angarsk as "the first step to be taken by Russia in this direction."
