ASTANA. Oct 30 (Interfax-AVN) - Kazakhstan and France are increasing their military-industrial cooperation, a number of documents have been signed, the Kazakh state space agency KazCosmos said on Friday.
On October 26-27, Kazakhstan's Minister for Defense and Aerospace Industry Beibut Atamkulov paid a working visit to France, the agency's spokesperson said. There he met with Joel Barre, head of the General Directorate for Armament France; Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, Minister of State for Europe and Foreign Affairs and French co-chairman of the Kazakh-French intergovernmental commission for economic cooperation; Nicolas Chamussy, Airbus' space chief; Alex Cresswell, Thales Group' Executive Vice President; Martin Sion, the chief executive of Safran Electronics and Defence; and MBDA's export director Jean Luc Lamothe.
"At the talks Kazakhstan and France consolidated their bilateral cooperation in the space sphere, on civil and military aviation, and armament," the statement said.
The parties also signed "separate documents in the sphere of military-technical cooperation," the statement said.
The Kazakh delegation visited Airbus' space satellite assembly and testing facilities in Toulouse where it was shown the company's activities in designing and building civil and military geostationary satellites.
"Towards conclusion of the working trip the parties noted the great potential in bilateral relations and expressed their confidence in further deeper and broader cooperation in said spheres, and decided on the concrete practical steps toward implementing the agreements reached," the statement said.