Wang Kun, a driver for a biomedicine company in Beijing, has
never been to Russia.
But he now has a rudimentary impression of China's biggest
neighbor in the north. "Russia is pretty advanced," he said, as he
was waiting in a queue of more than 20 people for his turn to take
a picture in front of a photo of a solemn-looking Vladimir Putin
posted on a huge billboard.
The occasion is the Russian National Exhibition, which opened to
the public yesterday and will continue through the weekend at the
China World Trade Center in Beijing as a grand finale of the "Year
of Russia in China."
Some 700 mostly large-scale conglomerates, businesses, design
and research institutes from Russia have joined the exhibition that
presents a contemporary Russia, which is making scientific and
technological headway not only in space, aviation, nuclear energy
and machinery, but also in medicine and food processing.
The organizers hope the exhibition will push Russian enterprises
to export more Russian products and services.
Some major Russian firms already have a firm foothold in China,
such as JSC Atomstroyexport, which implements contracts of the
Russian Federation within the framework of intergovernmental
agreements for the construction of nuclear power plants
worldwide.
Alexander Selikhov, chief officer in charge of the building of
the Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant in Lianyungang, east China's Jiangsu Province, told China Daily his
team has at times more than 1,000 Russian engineers, technicians
and workers.
Others have more eye-catching exhibits from prototypes of space
shuttles, models of satellites to aircrafts and their engines. Of
those, Resurs-DK1 satellite from Samara Space Center drew keen eyes
from a lot of visitors, with Premier Wen Jiabao among them.
Sergev I Efimov, the center's department head, was proud that
Wen spent some time at his booth on Friday morning after he cut the
ribbon to open the show. "I told Wen how our satellite can record
and capture even a single tree or a moving car from outer space,"
Efimov said.
Apart from the hardware, the Russians are also showing their
expertise in software. Dmitriy Kiselyov, greater China regional
director of Prognoz, said his company has successfully collaborated
with China's Development Research Center of the State Council and
developed an economic analytical and forecast model suitable for
analyzing and forecasting the trend and changes in China's
macro-economy.
Kiselyov told China Daily that the system is unique in
that it takes into account not only recent indexes but also
historical data, and monitors current changing figures. "Businesses
can also apply similar systems to measure their performance and
forecast their growth along with the overall development in the
country," he said.
Hardware and software aside, Russia is also promoting its
development in tourism, culture and urban expansion, with which
several regions hope to allure Chinese investment.
Shanghai Industrial Investment (Holdings) Co Ltd has started
what it terms a "Pearl of the Baltic Sea" project in St.
Petersburg, where the company is undertaking to build a new resort
city for both local people and potential tourists. The project
involves an investment of US$1.3 billion.
"This project is considered one of the key projects in
China-Russia strategic cooperation," said Wang Sizheng, deputy
chief economist of the Shanghai Municipal Development and Reform
Commission.
(China Daily November 11, 2006)
