Secretary of State congratulated A.Pieri on a successful completion of his diplomatic mission in Kazakhstan and thanked him for a strong contribution to strengthening the bilateral political, economic, humanitarian and cultural relations. The current state and prospects of further cooperation, including the issues of coordination in relation to holding the EXPO-2015 in Milan and the EXPO-2017 in Astana were discussed at the meeting as well. Italy ranks 3rd out of all foreign trade partners of Kazakhstan and 1st out of the European states. In 2013 the trade turnover between our countries exceeded $16,2 billion.