Almaty. October 8. Kazakhstan Today - Cooperation between Kazakhstan and Russia in the sphere of transportation of oil and gas to China is necessary to be expanded. The chairman of Federation Council Committee for CIS Affairs, Vadim Gustov, said today during the 16th conference Oil and Gas - KIOGE-2008, the agency reports. Now cooperation between Kazakhstan and Russia in the sphere of transportation of oil and gas develops in the western direction. We need to also develop export of hydrocarbons to the markets of East Asia and first of all China. "This is a strategically important direction. Kazakhstan and Russia have strategic value for China," V. Gustov noted. The Chinese leadership expects that in the long term more than half of oil received in China from abroad should be exported from Kazakhstan and Russia," he emphasized.