New era dawns for expanding Sino-Russian businesses

As Russia's top trading partner since 2010, China has played an increasingly important role in boosting business and economic growth between the two. Under the new era - with cooperation and mutual development of major significance - the countries will further strengthen their ties and expand their work together in various fields. Sergey Katyrin, president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation, shares his views on joint projects and prospects for the future.

Which fields have China and Russia cooperated closely on before? Could you give some examples?

One example of the practical interaction is the continuing work on joining up the Eurasian Economic Union (Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan treaty) with projects under China's Belt and Road Initiative.

An important part of this work is the establishment of a Eurasian high-speed transport corridor running from Moscow to Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Astana, Urumqi and Beijing.

The construction of new sections of high-speed railway lines is stipulated in the development of railway systems in Russia, Kazakhstan and China.

Construction of the high-speed railway section of the 770 km Moscow-Kazan line is suggested as the initial stage of this corridor, on Russian Federation territory.

Currently a Russian-Chinese consortium is conducting engineering design work for this line.

Supported by the BRICS interbank cooperation mechanism, how do you see the economic and trade development potential of China and Russia?

China has been Russia's leading trading partner since 2010. Last year the share of Chinese trade in Russia's total foreign trade turnover was 14.1 percent.

Official statistics show that the volume of accumulated Chinese direct investment in the Russian economy at the end of the first half of 2016 was $8.9 billion (up 2.9 percent on the same period in 2015).

With cooperation between BRICS countries becoming stronger, we have more opportunities to implement big multilateral projects. Russia and China should use these opportunities to work closely together.

Both Russian and Chinese investors are ready to invest in expanding output and creating new jobs, in order to further trade and investment ties between our countries.

What improvements can be made in the future to achieve better economic cooperation?

Despite attempts at some coordination of economic activity, including through the adoption of the BRICS Economic Partnership Strategy until 2020, the five countries differ in their trade policies. With goods and services, the BRICS countries use different approaches when applying tariff and non-tariff measures in their trade regulations. And a significant number of these measures affect trade between the BRICS countries.

These actions, of course, affect the volume of our mutual trade, which so far has not been showing impressive figures.

In this situation, calls to liberalize trade, increase market openness and facilitate access to them are getting louder.

We need a thorough analysis of existing barriers between countries, and the development of better regulatory practices and trade facilitation measures involving representatives of the business community, including SMEs.

In which fields will China and Russia have potential to cooperate in the future? What kind of efforts have been made by Russia to promote such cooperation?

In order to further increase mutual trade and achieve inclusive and balanced development, Russia and China must together seek new growth points.

They must create conditions for unimpeded trade, which in turn is one of the main engines of economic growth.

In this context, it seems promising to increase the volumes of nonprimary domestic exports to China, in particular food products.

Most Russian producers, especially companies in the Far Eastern Federal District, are ready to become reliable suppliers of such products.