Kazakhstan to supply India with 5,000 tonnes of uranium

Kazakhstan has supplied India with 2,100 tonnes of uranium between 2010 and 2014

ASTANA: Kazakhstan on Wednesday signed an agreement with India to supply New Delhi with 5,000 tonnes of uranium over the next five years, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said after meeting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"The signing of a contract to supply India with 5,000 tonnes of uranium from 2015 to 2019 is testimony of the systematic development of cooperation in the energy sphere," Nazarbayev said at a news conference. Kazakhstan is the world's leading uranium producer.

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"We greatly value our relationship with Kazakhstan," said Modi, adding it was "one of the first countries with which we launched civil nuclear cooperation."

Kazakhstan supplied India with 2,100 tonnes of uranium between 2010 and 2014. "We are pleased to have a much larger second contract now," Modi said, calling Kazakhstan "our biggest economic partner in the region."

The Indian prime minister arrived in Kazakhstan on Tuesday as part of a tour of the five ex-Soviet Central Asian countries. He has already visited Uzbekistan and is set to visit Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan later this month.

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Modi hailed "a new era in our relationship with Central Asia" at a speech at a university in Kazakhstan on Tuesday.

The Indian PM later Wednesday arrived in Russia to attend a summit of the BRICS emerging economies in the city of Ufa in the Urals.