BEIJING, June 5 (Xinhua) -- Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev will arrive in Beijing Wednesday on a state visit to China.

He will also attend the 18th meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization scheduled for Saturday and Sunday in Qingdao city in east China's Shandong Province.

Nazarbayev, 78, graduated from the Highest Technical Educational Institution at the Karaganada Metallurgic Works. He has a doctoral degree in economics and was conferred an honorary doctoral degree by Peking University in 2002.

He has served as chairman of the Ministers' Council of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, chairman of the Supreme Council of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, and president of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic.

Nazarbayev was elected president of the independent Republic of Kazakhstan in December 1991, and won four presidential elections after his first term. His term ends in 2020.