Zee Beam News

19.05.2006 MosNews - On Friday, May 19, chairman of the Federation Council's foreign affairs committee Igor Rogachev said that the volume of bilateral trade between Russia and China may amount to $35 billion in 2005. Last year trade turnover between the two countries has grown by 38 percent and exceeded $29 billion. Rogachev, who is currently in Beijing, said that the most serious problem of the bilateral trade between two countries is the fact that the share of engineering production in Russian exports to China has decreased dramatically. "Today this figure amounts to 2.5 percent [of total exports]," he said, quoted by RIA Novosti. The Russian senator said that this has never happened before in all history of Russian-Chinese trade relations. He added that in many ways the solution to this problem depends on the level of Russian industry's development, but noted that for now there is a tendency of turning Russia into China's "raw material supplier". "We do not agree with this and we hope for understanding from our Chinese partners in regard with keeping a balanced trade," Rogachev said. The senator also said that Russia and China are currently considering joining Chinese program for revival of the old industrial base in the country's north-eastern part and Russian program for development of Siberia and the Far East.