RusEnergy

07.11.2006 - MosNews - Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov said on Monday, Nov. 6, that Russia and China would sign 17 agreements to build nuclear power plants and explore for oil and gas when Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov visits Beijing this month. The contracts will also cover scientific cooperation, which will help the two countries increase trade to $60 billion by 2009, a year earlier than had been expected, Zhukov also said. “Our trade was up 25 percent year- on-year so far this year to $30 billion,” the Russian official said, quoted by Bloomberg news. “Our cooperation is going well across the board, especially in the trade of energy, oil and gas.” Despite competition in energy industries between the two countries, Russia will keep its promise to pipe crude oil and natural gas, as well as transmit electricity to China, Zhukov said. The Russian Deputy Prime Minister also pointed out imbalance of bilateral trade structure, with more than half of Russia’s exports to China being energy resources. He said he was disappointed at the decline in mechanical and electronic equipment exports to China, and called for an improvement. Russian Prime Minister Fradkov is scheduled to meet his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao in Beijing, and make an address at the closing ceremony of China’s Year of Russia on November 9. He will also visit the National Exhibition on Russia in Beijing, which is a high-level exhibition that covers a broad range of economic and industrial fields. On his visit Fradkov will be accompanies by several prominent figures from the Russian business community, who will also give press conferences in China to speak of cooperation between the countries. These include Alexander Livshits, deputy general director of the world’s third largest aluminium company Rusal and Sergei Bogdanchikov, CEO of state-controlled oil company Rosneft.