The Chinese president and the Russian president have agreed to cooperate in broad economic and trade areas, both countries said at the meeting.
According to Chinese state media, most prominent on the list was the role and increasing use of “local” currency. The Kremlin clarified that the yuan and the ruble account for two-thirds of the payments in trade negotiations between the two countries.
The deal covered other areas: increasing bilateral cooperation on trade, energy and food security, and improving rail and other cross-border logistics infrastructure.
China is already Russia’s largest major trading partner. Official announcements from both sides outlined few details about the numbers and timelines of the projects, with the plan focused on implementation through 2030.
The strengthening of Russian-Chinese economic partnership comes as the US and its allies have imposed sanctions against Russia over its unexpected foray into Ukraine. Beijing has expressed concern over their incursion and calls for peace talks.
The Chinese side only stated that it was committed to significantly increasing the volume of bilateral trade by 2030. However, the planned increase in trade was mentioned several times in the Kremlin statement.
China’s imports from Russia rose nearly 49% in yuan terms last year to 763.76 billion yuan.
Russia claims that the two countries have completed 80 important and necessary bilateral projects in a variety of sectors. The total value is just shy of $165 billion.
The US dollar remains by far the preferred currency for global transactions. However, the use of the Chinese yuan has grown significantly, with figures indicating a low single digit percentage. Beijing is pushing hard for the internationalization of its national currency.
China and Russia partner on gas pipeline
Russia and China are laying out a pipeline that provides a large part of the natural gas to China. Beijing did not release specific information. However, the Russian side said it increased gas supplies to the main Siberian pipeline by half, or 50%, last year.
The two countries have agreed to cooperate in the media jointly. This included the joint production of television programs and cooperation in many other ways between the state media of the two countries.
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