Special Report:Global Financial Crisis

Special Report: Premier Wen visits Russia, Kazakhstan, attends SCO meeting    

    MOSCOW, Oct. 27 (Xinhua) -- Russia and China should make all possible efforts to boost bilateral economic cooperation to counter the negative impact of the current global financial crisis on the two economies, a Russian expert said in an interview with Xinhua.

    "Closer cooperation between Russia and China will prevent the ongoing financial crisis from inflicting bad influence on the real economy of the two countries," said Andrew Ostrovsky, deputy chief of the Far East Institute of the Russian Academy of Science.

    "If the two economies continue to grow at a high speed, bilateral trade will definitely keep increasing," Ostrovsky said, noting that bilateral trade has grown rapidly in recent years.

    Meanwhile, Ostrovsky said Russia and China should strengthen cooperation in the field of energy.

    "Almost all of Russia's pipelines now extend to the West, but the fastest growing economies are in the Asia-Pacific region, especially China... They all have great demand for energy and Russia should partner with them in this aspect," he said.

    In his view, Northeast China, which is an old industrial base, have broad cooperation prospects with the Russian regions of Siberia and Far East.

    The Russian expert also suggested the two countries consider using the Chinese yuan or the Russian ruble as a settlement currency in bilateral trade. This is what already has been going on in border trade between the two countries and has proved to be mutually beneficial, he said.

    Under current conditions, when the Chinese yuan is rising against the U.S. dollar, the use of the dollar as a settlement currency would cause losses to both sides, he said.

    He thus called on the governments and banks of Russia and Chinato enhance cooperation and enact relevant policies as early as possible.