While the settlement of border issues and the approval of the cooperation outline had laid a political and legal basis for cooperation, the strong will of cooperation by the governments and enterprises on both sides also brought about dynamics, the Chinese leader said.
The decline of bilateral trade in 2009, which was mainly caused by the global financial crisis, was only a temporary phenomenon, said Xi, stressing that it did not and would not change the basis and the favorable trend of comprehensive development of bilateral economic and trade cooperation between the two countries.
China has been Russia's biggest trading partner since February last year. Sino-Russian trade reached its peak in 2008, with trade volume hitting a record 58.8 billion U.S. dollars.
However, the volume was dragged down by the global economic downturn last year, falling 31.8 percent year on year to 38.8 billion dollars.
The bilateral trade surged 67.9 percent on an annual basis in the first two months of 2010, bringing it close to the pre-crisis level.
Later in the day, China and Russia signed 15 cooperation documents totaling 1.6 billion dollars covering economic, technological, energy and infrastructure cooperation.
Russia is the first leg of Xi's four-nation Europe tour, which will also take him to Belarus, Finland and Sweden.
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China, Russia sign 1.6 billion-U.S. dollar cooperation documents
VLADIVOSTOK, Russia, March 20 (Xinhua) -- China and Russia signed 15 cooperation documents totalling 1.6 billion U.S. dollars here on Saturday.
Representatives of the governments and business communities of the two countries signed the documents covering economic, technological, energy and infrastructure cooperation. Full story
Chinese Vice-President meets Russian regional governor on ties, cooperation
VLADIVOSTOK, Russia, March 20 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping met with Governor of Russia's Primorsky Territory Sergey Mikhaylovich Darkin here Saturday, exchanging views on bilateral ties and cooperation.
Xi told Darkin making the Primorsky Territory the first leg of his Russia tour was to boost the interregional cooperation between China and Russia to a wider and deeper level, as agreed by leaders of both sides. Full story
