British Prime Minister David Cameron signed a string of trade deals in Kazakhstan on Monday, July 1 during a groundbreaking but controversial visit to the resource-rich, ex-Soviet state that has been criticized for human rights abuses and political repression, RIA Novosti said.

Cameron and Kazakhstan’s long-serving President Nursultan Nazarbayev signed a strategic partnership agreement and several business accords, in the first visit by a serving British Prime Minister to the country that occupies a huge swath of Central Asia, a region that gave birth to the Great Game, a period of political rivalry between the British Empire and czarist Russia.

Cameron pledged to double trade turnover by 2017 from last year’s $2.3 billion. Britain is already a major investor in Kazakhstan's booming oil sector.

At a news conference on Monday, Cameron said that the two nations already cooperate on issues ranging from promoting stability in Afghanistan with a military transit agreement to oil extraction and export.

The International Security Assistance Force, to which Britain is a major contributor, has been using a railway line across Kazakhstan to supply its troops in Afghanistan. Some of the troops and equipment there will be transported via the railroad during the planned 2014 withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Cameron said he was “impressed” by an oil plant he and Nazarbayev opened late on Sunday in the Caspian Sea town of Atyrau. The plant will process oil from the offshore Kashagan field, one of largest oil deposits discovered in recent decades, which holds up to 9 billion barrels of oil, according to energy company Eni.

Prior to his departure to Kazakhstan with a delegation of British businessmen, he said he would sign trade agreements worth $1.1 billion that will secure “jobs back home,” British media reported. British companies have considerable experience of offshore oil production gained from developing the North Sea fields.