"Our cooperation today has reached a new level, the level of implementing major projects in practical terms," Nazarbayev said. He added that this was the first large-scale bilateral project the two countries had started together this century.
The 988-kilometer long pipeline, which will be the second section of a Kazakhstan-China project estimated at an overall $700 million, will connect an oil-loading facility in the central Kazakh region of Karaganda with the Druzhba-Alashankou railroad terminal on the Chinese border.
Nazarbayev also said the countries had reached an agreement on investigating sources of investment for the construction of a Kazakhstan-China gas pipeline
