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The Forum on China-Russia Trade and Economic Relations with the theme of “Current Situation, Potential and Prospects of China-Russia Economic and Trade Cooperation” jointly sponsored by the China-Russia Friendship Association (CRFA) and the Russia-China Friendship Association (RCFA) was held in Beijing from January 26 to 27, 2008. At the forum, the current situation, existing problems in the development of Sino-Russian economic and trade relations, ways to tackle them and other matters of interest to both sides were discussed.

On the morning of January 26, the opening ceremony of the forum was held. Chen Haosu, CPAFFC president; Li Jianping, CPAFFC vice president; Chen Yuan, president of China Development Bank (CDB); Liu Su, executive vice president of the CRFA; Sergey Razov, Russian ambassador to China; Nikolai I. Ryzhkov, chairman of the Commission on Natural Monopolies of the Russian Federation Council; Igor A. Rogachev, member of the Russian Federation Council; Mikhail Titarenko, president of the RCFA, and Sergey S. Tsyplakov, Russian trade representative in China, attended the opening ceremony and spoke on the occasion. The opening ceremony was presided over by Zhu Jiamu, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Over 100 people including officials in charge of relevant departments of the Ministry of Commerce, Jilin Province and Jilin City, council members of the CRFA, scholars from the Policy Research Office of the CPC Central Committee, the Development Research Centre of the State Council and the Institute of East European, Russian and Central Asian Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, as well as representatives of the Russian local governments, scholars of relevant research and educational institutions and businessmen attended the opening ceremony.

In his speech CPAFFC President Chen Haosu spoke highly of the great achievements made in the Year of Russia and the Year of China held respectively by China and Russia in the past two years and stressed that the principle of promoting official ties through people-to-people contact and promoting political relations through economic and trade contact must be carried out earnestly so as to effectively remove the difficulties currently existing in China-Russia relations. Chen Yuan, president of the CDB, said, both China and Russia have maintained sustained economic growth, and bilateral cooperation in the financial field has made noticeable progress. Ambassador Razov said, the Year of China and the Year of Russia successfully held by the two countries in the past two years have greatly deepened mutual understanding between the two peoples. Bilateral cooperation in all fields has seen a leap in both quantity and quality. Remarkable achievements have been made in economic and trade cooperation. Bilateral trade volumes have sustained a steady growth, thus opening a bright prospect for further deepening Russia-China strategic partnership of coordination. The problems existing in bilateral economic and trade cooperation should be solved through making joint efforts to fully exchange views and adhere to the principle of consultations on an equal footing.

At the opening of the forum a ceremony for signing the agreement on setting up 156 Russian high-tech projects in China was held. The projects involve areas of energy conservation, medical and biological engineering, new materials, environmental protection, agriculture, etc.

At the forum the Chinese and Russian scholars had warm discussions, fully affirmed the achievements made in China-Russia economic and trade cooperation in recent years and unanimously held that the past decade saw a normal development of the bilateral economic and trade relations, but there also existed problems which should not be neglected and need to be summed up and pondered over.

Both sides held, cooperation in energy is an important component of bilateral economic and trade cooperation. As the two countries are neighbours, cooperation in energy has obvious geographic advantages. Both countries attach great importance to cooperation in this field and have achieved results. Meanwhile, they should vigorously strengthen cooperation in science and technology and further improve and upgrade the traditional trade structure. The Chinese and Russian localities are now directly developing their cooperative relations, which have become more and more clearly important in the economic and trade relations between the two countries and have a direct bearing on their in-depth development. Bilateral cooperation in agriculture has attracted greater attention. The participants at the forum put forward suggestions on jointly reclaiming Russias unused land to grow soy beans, etc.

The 156 Russian high-tech projects to be set up in China symbolize the 156 industrial projects aided by the Soviet Union in the early days of new China. These projects will be implemented through such ways as transfer of packages of technologies by the Sino-Russian Trading Co., Ltd. and the Russia-China Trade and Economic Cooperation Centre set up by the Chinese and Russian nongovernmental organizations.