Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi and her Russian counterpart Alexander Zhukov addressed the roundtable meeting on China-Russia trade and investment cooperation in St. Petersburg, Russia, June 10, 2007. Wu stressed that China and Russia should seize opportunities to conduct win-win cooperation and achieve common development.

 

She said that as the only bilateral event under the framework of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum the roundtable meeting will serve as a platform for the business communities of both countries to increase understanding and deepen mutually beneficial cooperation. In March this year, President Hu Jintao and President Putin proposed that China and Russia become partners extending sincere mutual trust in the political field, conducting mutually beneficial cooperation in the economic and trade area, making joint innovation efforts in the technological arena, building harmony and friendship in the area of education and culture and enjoying unity and mutual help in the security field, which sets the direction for the second decade of China-Russia strategic partnership and lays down the political foundation for both sides to expand economic and trade cooperation. The rapid economic growth of China and Russia makes the two countries the most attractive markets and investment destinations in the world, which also consolidates the economic basis of bilateral cooperation. China-Russia economic and trade cooperation has witnessed remarkable growth in recent years. The bilateral trade volume reached US$33.4 billion in 2006, rising by nearly 500% over 1992. Businesses are the major players of economic and trade cooperation. Only with their active participation can China-Russia economic and trade cooperation enjoy strong dynamism. Wu expressed hope that businesses of the two countries seize the strategic opportunities of economic and trade cooperation, follow the principle of mutual benefit and take a long-term point of view to deepen cooperation in such fields as energy, trade in machinery and electronic products, deep processing of lumber, financial services, infrastructure construction, information technology, civil aviation manufacturing and farm product trade to achieve common development.

 

Zhukov noted that the bilateral ties have grown comprehensively, trade volume increased rapidly and investment cooperation achieved notable progress since the signing of Russia-China Good-Neighborly Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation. The goal of increasing bilateral trade volume to US$60 billion by 2010 set by the two countries is totally reachable. The roundtable meeting is very fruitful. Both sides discussed the current state and prospects of investment and trade cooperation and raised detailed suggestions on deepening the bilateral trade cooperation. He added that the "Year of China" event has moved the cooperation of businesses of both countries from the stage of general exchanges to the stage of signing specific cooperation agreements. Governments of the two countries encourage and support the efforts of businesses to seek cooperation opportunities and conduct pragmatic cooperation and hope both sides further optimize the trade structure, enhance partnership in such fields as investment, energy, agriculture, forestry, food, finance and aviation manufacturing and achieve win-win results through deepening cooperation.

 

Representatives of about 200 businesses from China and Russia participated in the meeting and made in-depth discussions on bilateral economic and trade cooperation in various fields.

 

Following the meeting, Wu and Zhukov jointly attended the signing ceremony of 19 cooperation agreements worth about US$2 billion, covering machinery equipment, automobile, agriculture, energy, project contracting and high-tech.