Comment .:

ALMATY (AFP)--Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev will visit neighboring China this month, China's ambassador said Thursday, as the Central Asian state grapples with economic crisis.

Nazarbayev will attend the Boao Forum for Asia, a regional economic summit that takes place April 17-19, and sign documents with President Hu Jintao, said Ambassador Chen Gopin.

"During the forthcoming visit the appropriate institutions of the two sides will sign a series of documents of cooperation, including those relating to credits," he said, in comments confirmed to AFP by his staff.

Kazakhstan, an energy-rich Central Asian state once firmly in Moscow's sphere of influence, has in recent years sought greater economic and political ties with energy-hungry China.

China has in turn used its economic rise to make inroads in the neighboring ex-Soviet republics, building roads in remote mountain regions while bidding for the region's energy riches.

Astana's once-brimming cash reserves have been badly dented by both its exposure to the global credit crunch and plummeting commodity prices.

The state moved to nationalize the country's largest bank BTA earlier this year.

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 09, 2009 08:54 ET (12:54 GMT)

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