China and Russia wrapped up a successful year of cooperation with an annual year-end meeting in which the two vowed to deepen ties across a range of issues as record trade between them passed the symbolic 200 billion dollar mark.
Bilateral trade between China and Russia exceeded 200 billion dollars in the first 11 months of this year, Chinese leader Xi Jinping said at a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin on Wednesday.
This marked the achievement of the goal set by Xi and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in 2019 ahead of schedule.
They then pledged that trade would exceed 200 billion dollars by 2024. Trade between the two countries continued to expand after Russia’s aggression against Ukraine in 2022, growing by roughly 30 percent in 2022 to reach a record 190 billion dollars.
The latest trade data shows “strong resilience and broad prospects” for cooperation, Xi said on Wednesday.
The two countries should “give full play to the advantages of political mutual trust” and “deepen cooperation in the fields of economy, trade, energy and connectivity,” Xi said during the meeting.
China, the world’s second-largest economy, has emerged as a key economic lifeline for Russia after the United States (U.S.) and its allies cut trade and imposed sanctions following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, prompting criticism that Beijing is backing Russia’s war effort.
Chinese customs data released earlier this month showed China-Russia trade reached a record nearly 218.2 billion dollars in the first 11 months of 2023. But that figure represents just 4 percent of China’s 5.41 trillion dollars in global trade over the same period.
