Rome, 3 Nov.(AKI) - Bilateral cooperation, trade and investment will be the main focus when the president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, meets Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi on a two-day state visit which begins on Wednesday. Nazarbayev will also meet Pope Benedict XVI for the first time.

"The purpose of my visit to Italy is to build on positive trends in Kazakh-Italian relations, expand and deepen trade and economic and investment cooperation, and also give a boost to political interaction, taking into account the leading role of Italy in the European Union," Nazarbayev said in a statement on the eve of his visit.

"The prime minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, and I plan to discuss actual problems of world politics, issues of bilateral cooperation in trade and economic and investment spheres."

The two leaders plan to endorse five bilateral accords during Nazarbayev's visit, while Italian companies will sign 13 commercial accords with their Kazakh counterparts.

There are currently 130 Italian companies who do business in Kazakhstan and bilateral trade is worth 13 billion dollars a year. Energy giant, ENI, and defence and transport contractor, Finmeccanica, are among the companies expected to benefit from new trade agreements to be endorsed this week.

"A treaty on strategic partnership and a number of intergovernmental agreements on cooperation in the fight against organised crime, military issues among others, are supposed to be signed," Nazarbayev said.

"I am convinced my visit will open wide prospects of cooperation in various areas for us and, in general, will take our relations to a qualitatively new level."

Nazarbayev will also meet the pope for the first time in an historic meeting designed to strengthen interreligious dialogue. Nazarbayev is a practising Muslim.

Kazakhstan has more than 16 million people and Islam is the largest religion in the country followed by the Russian Orthodox Christian faith.