Kazakhstan and France have begun the construction of a spacecraft assembly and test center outside Astana, head of the Kazakh space agency Kazcosmos Talgat Musabayev said on Wednesday.
The project, estimated at 110 million euros (around 154 million U.S. dollars), was agreed during French President Nicolas Sarkozy' s visit to Kazakhstan last October, Xinhua reported.
France owns 27.5 percent stake in the project and Kazakhstan 72. 5 percent stake, Musabayev said.
According to Kazcosmos, the complex will be a science intensive production facility that in the future would build spacecraft not only for the Central Asian republic, but also for other countries.
Kazakhstan plans to build satellites in cooperation with French partners in the initial stage, and then to launch its own production.