Xi Jinping set a goal to increase trade turnover with Russia to $250 billion - Peskov

During his talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced his intention to boost the volume of bilateral trade volume to $250 billion. The news was announced to the reporters by Press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov.

"Our trade volume has already reached $140 billion, as it was emphasized by the leaders during the talks. It is noteworthy that President Xi has already set a new goal for us in this regard - $250 billion," Peskov said.

A Kremlin spokesman noted that "for China, this is not a big figure, but for us it is really a very ambitious goal, though we can see how quickly we exceeded the 100 billion mark." "Therefore, $250 billion, as a trade volume, is also obviously quite a realistic figure, given the existing trend of the bilateral relations development," Peskov said.

Expanding the trade and economic relations perspectives
Speaking about expanding the perspectives of bilateral trade and economic relations, Peskov said that following the meeting, a special roadmap prepared by the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Commerce of the PRC had been adopted. According to him, its implementation will help boost volume and scale of trade, as well as improve its structure, including through the search for new areas of cooperation. "Diversification of our trade turnover is extremely important and will probably help us reach absolutely new levels," the Kremlin spokesman said.
Peskov recalled that during the talks between the two leaders, important agreements were reached in the field of gas and oil. He spoke about the expansion of cooperation between Gazprom and the China National Petroleum Corporation that signed a 25-year contract to supply Russian pipeline gas to the Chinese market with an additional 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year via a new route from the Far East. Another agreement was the decision on additional supplies from Rosneft to Chinese refineries in addition to the 50 million tons of oil that were exported in 2021.
Vaccines turned to be another promising area of ​​economic cooperation. "The first batches of Sputnik V have already been manufactured in China, scaling up is underway. In total a volume of 150 million doses has been contracted for. The work is in progress and it is very effective," Peskov said.
Among the economic projects, according to him, the Amur gas-chemical complex, the joint manufacture of cars by Sollers and Cherry at the Ulyanovsk Automobile Plant, were also discussed. Agriculture turned to be a separate issue for discussion, where turnover dropped by 7% as a result of the pandemic. "This is bad, by a number of categories like fish and seafood, our supplies to China dropped by more than 60%," Peskov added. According to him, during the talks Putin said that it is necessary to look for the options to make up for this drop.

The presidential spokesman said that cooperation in military and technical field had also been an issue discussed during the negotiations. "Being a sensitive issue, it is quite well developed and, it can be regarded as a proof of special allied nature of relations between the two countries," he concluded.
Source: biang.ru
Image source: finance.rambler.ru