On the evening of June 11, 2010, Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived in Astana for a state visit to Kazakhstan.
At about 20:00 local time, Hu’s special plane arrived at Astana International Airport, where he was warmly greeted by Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Masimov.
Hu said in a statement released upon arrival at the airport that China and Kazakhstan shared a long history of friendly relations and the traditional friendship between both peoples has been passed on from generation to generation. He said, since the two countries established diplomatic ties 18 years ago, bilateral relations had maintained a momentum of vigorous growth. Bilateral cooperation in the areas of politics, economy, trade, energy, security and culture had been fruitful. Hu said the two countries stood firm in reciprocal support on major and sensitive issues of each other's concern, adding the two sides had cooperated closely within multilateral frameworks such as the United Nations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia. Hu said the cooperation had brought about substantial benefits to the people of both countries and played a positive role in promoting regional peace, stability and development.
During the visit, Hu will hold talks with his Kazakh counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev and meet with parliament and government leaders. The two sides will outline the future development of bilateral ties. They will decide on the key tasks and areas of bilateral cooperation in the next stage and exchange views on major international and regional issues of common concern. Hu expressed belief that with the joint efforts of both sides, his visit would be a total success and help advance the strategic partnership between China and Kazakhstan to a new stage.
Ling Jihua, Wang Huning, Dai Bingguo and other accompanying officials arrived by the same plane.
Chinese Ambassador to Kazakhstan Zhou Li also greeted Hu at the airport.
Before flying into Astana from Tashkent, Hu paid a state visit to Uzbekistan and attended an annual SCO summit in Tashkent.