ASTANA - China and Kazakhstan pledged Saturday to promote bilateral trade and energy cooperation and push forward their natural gas pipeline project.

The two countries made the pledge in a joint declaration issued after talks between visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Kazakh  counterpart, Nursultan Nazarbayev.

In the document, the two sides vowed to keep on tapping potential in economic and trade cooperation, optimizing bilateral trade structure, promoting trade facilitation, building more platforms and working toward the goal of increasing bilateral trade volume to $40 billion in 2015.

The two countries also agreed to promote two-way investment and continue to improve their respective legal basis for bilateral cooperation.

Meanwhile, the two countries vowed to extend and deepen their cooperation in energy, as well as ensuring the safe and stable operation of joint projects such as oil and gas exploration and transportation.

According to the declaration, both sides will speed up the expansion of the first phase of China-Kazakhstan natural gas pipeline and the construction of the second phase.

In addition, the two sides agreed to push forward bilateral cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy and the development of alternative energy sources.

The declaration also called for a deeper cooperation in various fields including finance, agriculture, infrastructure construction of border crossings, combating transnational crimes, intellectual property protection as well as education and training.

Xi arrived in Astana on Friday for a state visit to Kazakhstan after attending a Group of 20 (G20) summit in the Russian city of St Petersburg.

Following his Kazakhstan trip, Xi is scheduled to pay state visits to Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Before the G20 summit, he visited Turkmenistan.

He will also attend the 13th meeting of the Council of Heads of Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Kyrgyzstan.