Moscow and Beijing boost economic relations
Attempt to overcome the pandemic and boost prospects. The most advantageous Chinese provinces for Russian business are Hong Kong, Guangdong, Shanghai and Beijing. Russian is spoken in border areas, like Heilongjiang.
Moscow (AsiaNews) - A "Russian-Chinese pact" is underway to overcome the pandemic and boost economic relations between Moscow and Beijing.
Chinese leaders confirmed the move to reporters of Nezavisimaja Gazeta, one of the most authoritative newspapers in Russia. The length article published on February 4th was re-printed in the following days by various publications.
It begins from the premise that trade between Russia and China in 2020 fell by 6.7%, to over 100 billion dollars, as the central office of the Russian Customs announced on 8 February. The Chinese Customs confirmed the decline also from the eastern part to 2.9%, again over 100 billion dollars.
But at the end of January, the Russian Ministry of Economic Development organized a presentation of the Russian regions for Chinese investors, and on February 8, the Russian-Asian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs presented a "Perspective Index of Chinese Regions for trade with Russian companies ".
It greatly advertises the ease with which Russian exporters adapt quickly to the rigid demands of the Chinese authorities, which have prohibited the export of fish and birds, due to the discovery of traces of Covid-19.
The president of the Union, Vitalij Mankevich (photo 2), observed that "Asia must become the main building site for transnational companies of the new type, in the field of exports of non-primary and non-energy materials", hence the plans to identify the most advantageous Chinese provinces for Russian business, and vice versa.
Hong Kong, Guangdong, Shanghai and Beijing stand out among the Chinese provinces, and excellent prospects are found in the south-eastern coastal regions of China.
Moreover, the central and northern provinces also have close relations with Russia, although they are much less developed. A key role is attributed to the north-eastern region of Heilongjiang, which borders the Russian Far East and serves as a distribution point for commercial traffic between the two countries, with the necessary infrastructure to regulate the passage of convoys. The use of the Russian language is also spreading more and more in the area.
The founder of the Sinoruss company, Surana Radnaeva (photo 3), insists that the regional rating be specified also for the Russian provinces: "I think that Russia has great possibilities to grow exports of non-primary materials, ensuring that companies Russian cooperate more with Chinese ones in the production of various articles on our territory; it is not convenient to export raw materials to China, to make them work and come back to us and all over the world, especially in Europe ”, Radnaeva told Nezavisimaja Gazeta.
This would help boost employment among the Russian population, and would bring large Chinese investments, with significant tax advantages; for this reason, Russian entrepreneurs insist on creating a more favourable climate for business with the Chinese.
In recent years, an area of the Volga in Middle Eastern European Russia about a thousand kilometers from Moscow, Samara (which also includes the city of Togliatti) has stood out among the Russian regions for the volume of business with China.
As the Idel.Realii website notes, the distance from the capital is not prohibitive for Russian customs, and the coordination of economic relations in the region is controlled directly from Moscow, according to the project called "Volga-Yangtse".
38 trade agreements are in force between the Russian and Chinese regions, 4 of which are very wide-ranging, precisely between the Samara region and the Chinese ones of Anhui, Hubei, Sichuan and the city of Chongqing. The growth of trade with Samara was particularly significant after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, combining the waters of the Volga with those of the Black Sea.
Trade between the Russian and Chinese provinces therefore seem to take on a more advantageous and concrete dimension than many other major Eurasian global plans, using different vectors and more targeted directions, in which Russian regions open their doors to Chinese partners.
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