Leaders of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan pledged Monday to set up a coordinating commission to promote bilateral economic cooperation.

After a meeting with visiting Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Uzbek President Islam Karimov said at a press conference in capital Tashkent that they had held in-depth discussion on bilateral economic cooperation and decided to form a committee to oversee the gradual lifting of trade barriers and promotion of investment between the two nations.

The commission, which consists of prime ministers and officials with key portfolios in both countries, will also be responsible for the formulation of a Uzbek-Kazakh economic cooperation plan for the period 2006-2010.

Both leaders stressed that strengthened Uzbek-Kazakh relations would significantly add to the security and stability of Central Asia.

They also agreed that Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan should work together more in international groups such as the United Nations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Eurasian Economic Community.

Nazarbayev started his two-day visit Sunday night. It was his first foreign visit since his reelection at the end of last year.

According to Kazakh official statistics, the trade volume between the two countries was close to 500 million U.S. dollars last year, up by 16 percent from that in 2004.

Source: Xinhua