Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:

Vladimir Putin: Mr Massimov, I am pleased that we are also able to have this bilateral meeting. It is a good opportunity to look once more at how our bilateral relations are developing.

As I mentioned before, at the start of our meetings, trade is recovering rapidly, we are overcoming the effects of the crisis and we are glad to see that the Kazakhstan leadership is battling the crisis and finding its way out. In view of the close cooperation and interdependence of our economies, this is important for Russia too.

I hope very much that we will continue to respond in a timely manner to everything that is happening in our economies; that we will share experience, respond with practical measures, taking in consideration the activities of specific enterprises in various sectors of the economy - in power generation and mechanical engineering - and help each other.

Karim Massimov: Thank you very much, Mr Putin. First, I would like to pass on greetings from Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of Kazakhstan. I coordinated our positions with him before the visit. He instructed me to pass along his warm regards first of all, and to use this opportunity to wish you a belated happy birthday.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you.

Karim Massimov: Relations between Russia and Kazakhstan have always been on a high level. There have been very few contentious issues, and when there were, compromises have always been found that benefit the peoples of our two countries and our economic development.

I think that the understandings reached today regarding the common economic space will let us harmonise our economies more and that our enterprises will have an opportunity to better integrate into each other's markets.

I would also like to inform you that we have made decent progress on a number of issues related to cooperation in the nuclear industry, space and some other industries. I have had several rounds of talks with Sergei Kiriyenko (Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the state-run Rosatom corporation) and I believe that we have very good prospects in this area.

Vladimir Putin: Yes, we have certainly made progress. Thank you very much for the attention you've given to these major projects. I have no doubt that their implementation will put these sectors of our economy on an entirely new level of competitiveness.