SHANGHAI, May 19  -- China and Kazakhstan on Monday vowed to jointly promote cooperation in a wide range of fields, including trade, energy, infrastructure, and environmental protection.

The pledge came in a joint declaration during the visit of President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev, for the 4th summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Shanghai on Tuesday and Wednesday, and a state visit at the invitation of President Xi Jinping. Xi held talks with Nazarbayev in Shanghai on Monday afternoon.

The two countries will continue to take measures to boost bilateral trade so as to meet the annual trade target of 40 billion U.S. dollars in 2015, according to the joint declaration

The two will optimize the bilateral trade structure and increase the proportion of high value-added and high-tech products in the overseas shipments, it said.

The two nations pledged to expand mutual investment and to encourage support for fund-raising of major, mutually beneficial economic cooperation projects.

The financial institutions in the two countries will be encouraged to create conditions for the use and settlement of local currencies in trade and investment, it said, adding the two will beef up cooperation in financial regulation.

The two said energy cooperation is of strategic importance to bilateral relations, vowing to develop a long-term stable, mutually beneficial energy strategic partnership.

The two countries will speed up construction of more cross-border crude oil and gas pipelines to increase crude and gas imports to China, said the declaration.

The two sides vowed to deepen cooperation in nuclear and renewable energy and to promote the construction of cross-border railways and roads.

The two countries also pledged equitable and reasonable use of water resources in their border rivers and vowed stronger cooperation in environmental protection for good water quality in the border rivers.

The two agreed to continue to strengthen cooperation and exchanges in culture and people-to-people exchanges.

The two agreed that Kazakhstan will host the "Chinese Culture Day" this year and "Tourism Year of China" in 2017.