Medvedev said that Russian-Chinese trade turnover could reach $200 billion

The Russian Prime Minister also stressed that Russian and Chinese approaches to regulation of international trade are unified. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has set a new benchmark for Russian-Chinese bilateral trade, saying that the level of $200 billion is already quite achievable.

«Bilateral trade is actively developing, this year we will reach the level of $100 billion, which, as you know, ten years ago seemed fantastic to us, and now we are already talking about other milestones, about the possibility of reaching $200 billion in trade turnover, and, I think that this figure is well within reach for our countries if we continue promoting active mutual cooperation in agreed areas» — he said at a press conference following the 23rd regular meeting of the Heads of Government of the Russian Federation and China.

The Prime Minister of the Russian Federation said that he had coordinated a number of additional steps with his Chinese counterpart to support small businesses, improve electronic commerce, and settlement system. Medvedev also promised to continue removing barriers in various areas, and not only in a bilateral format. He stressed the importance of linking the Eurasian Economic Union and the Silk Road Economic Belt.

Medvedev added that two countries have many investment projects related to energy, oil, gas, oil refining, high technologies, including manned space exploration, development of new materials and artificial intelligence as well.
It was decided to pay particular attention to the development of the Far East and timber processing. Agricultural sector has also special perspectives, according to Medvedev. «We have increased the export of Russian agricultural products to China, at the same time our Chinese partners are working in the same direction, and we are, of course, interested in implementation of new projects, including the export of Russian soybeans to China and a number of projects in other fields, keeping in mind development of transport and logistics capabilities,» the Prime Minister explained.

Russia and China have similar approach towards regulation of international commerce, Medvedev said.

«Here our approaches are unified, we believe that everything that has been done in this area should contribute to global trade, global investment exchange, and not be limited to specific countries or regions, since this hinders development in general,» the Russian prime minister said, commenting the negotiations.

As Russian Prime Minister said during the negotiations, the parties exchanged viewpoints concerning international trade regulation, the preservation of the World Trade Organization and the issues of its reformation, as well as the inadmissibility of violations by individual countries that introduce unreasonable trade barriers, sanctions or preferential regimens.
Source: tass.ru