The ongoing Chinese National Exhibition in Moscow has turned out
to be a massive boon to bilateral trade between China and Russia,
especially in machinery and electrical products, officials said in
Moscow Thursday.
"To enlarge Sino-Russian trade in machinery and electrical
products, the two sides should cooperate in priority areas such as
electricity, nuclear energy, space, telecommunications,
electronics, shipbuilding and automobiles," Chinese Vice Minister
of Commerce Yu Guangzhou said at the exhibition.
A key event of the "Year of China" in Russia, the March 26-29
exhibition has attracted many Chinese enterprises covering a wide
range of fields like automobiles and fittings, machine
manufacturing and home appliances.
The event was launched as visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao
and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin this week reached common
ground on improving the two countries' trade structure, especially
in raising the imports of Russia's machinery and electrical
products to China.
A Chinese purchasing group, consisting of 100 companies
specializing in the fields of electrical equipment, electronic
products, general machinery and engineering machinery, attended the
exhibition.
Zhang Yujing, Executive Vice President of the China Chamber of
Commerce of Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic
Products(CCCME), said in an interview with Xinhua that with a long
history and solid foundations, Russia's manufacturing sector had a
great deal of products suitable for the Chinese market.
According to Zhang, China's imports will reach US$1 trillion by
2010, a large market for the Russian products.
Chinese enterprises have signed four contracts worth about
US$509 million to buy machinery and electrical products from their
Russian counterparts during the fair. Another six contracts were
signed to supply machinery and electrical products worth US$1.128
billion to Russia.
Official statistics showed that China-Russia bilateral trade
turnover in machinery and electrical products stood at US$5.85
billion last year.
Although the sector experienced a 61-percent rise when compared
to the previous year, it accounted for less than 20 percent of the
whole bilateral trade volume.
(Xinhua News Agency March 30, 2007)
