China sees huge potential in trade with Russia, aims at expanding cooperation

The trade turnover between China and Russia has been only slightly affected by the coronavirus pandemic while global trade has been declining this year, China’s Premier Li Keqiang has said.

"Despite the fact that international trade in the world is falling significantly this year, our bilateral trade is declining quite insignificantly, somewhere around two percent," he said on Wednesday.

"We still see a huge potential for trade cooperation," the premier added, noting that China is interested in increasing imports of Russian products and wants mutual growth in trade and investment. 

The volume of trade between Russia and China was down by 2.3 percent in January-October year-on-year, amounting to over $88.19 billion, according to customs data. It is expected to surpass $100 billion by the end of the year.

Trade between the two countries has been growing in recent years and, in 2019, Moscow and Beijing said they had eliminated all barriers that could impede their fast-developing cooperation. The two sides also announced the ambitious goal of doubling the volume of trade to $200 billion by 2024.

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