Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhammadov invited French President Nikolas Sarkozy to pay a nofficial visit to Turkmenistan. Berdimuhammedov was on his first official visit to France Feb. 1-.3. He expressed gratitude to French side for the "invitation and warm welcome shown during his visit to the country."
During the visit, a package of intergovernmental agreements was signed and a joint business forum was held. The sides also discussed options to send Turkmen gas export to Europe within the Nabucco project.
Documents were signed covering the creation of a joint Turkmen-French intergovernmental economic cooperation commission, a protocol to an agreement on cooperation between foreign ministries, an agreement on cooperation in culture, education, science and technology, an interagency agreement between the culture ministries on museum cooperation, and an agreement on cooperation between the Turkmen Chamber of Commerce and French enterprises.
The Nabucco gas pipeline project is worth 7.9 billion euro. Participants of the project are Austrian OMV, Hungarian MOL, Bulgarian Bulgargaz, Romanian Transgaz, Turkish Botas and German RWE companies. Each of participants has equal share to the amount of 16.67 percent. Construction of gas pipeline is planned to be launched in 2011, the first supplies - in 2014. Maximal capacity of the pipeline will hit 31 billion cubic meters per year./Trend/