Zhang Di: Commercial and economic relations between Russia and China are wonderful

The forum’s business program opened with a plenary session entitled “The prospects for Chinese contractors in the Russian market”. The First Deputy of the Minister of Economic Development of Russia, Alexey Likhachev, said in his speech that the most ambitious manifestation of the relationship between Russia and China was joint project activity in the field of construction.

According to him, the priority is the development of roads and ports in the Far East. He proposed an earnest consideration of the Free Trade Zone, which will include China, Russia, the Central Asian states, Armenia, Belarus, India and Pakistan, where half of the world’s population resides.

For his part, the First Deputy Minister for Transport in Russia, Evgeny Ditrikh, has defined as a priority task the development of Russia’s transport potential on the world’s market.

One example is the establishment of the “Europe – Western China” international transport route. With regard to this, he reminded those present about the implementation of the country’s transport strategy on the development of passenger throughput and cargo flow up until 2030.

Expanding infrastructure transport capacities will eventually lead to the improvement of living standards, and this will provide a labour force. However, for the development of transport’s potential in Russia, it is necessary to create comfortable conditions for private investors.

In his speech, the commerce and economic advisor for the Chinese embassy in Russia, Zhang Di, has stressed that “commercial and economic relations between Russia and China are wonderful. Even if there was a decline in indices last year, it is necessary to look at these troubles philosophically”.

For 5 years China has been a primary economic partner of Russia, especially in the construction sector. The president of the Russian Construction Association, Nikolay Koshman, has pointed out that a number of Turkish companies have already left the Russian market, but the rest will, of course, also leave in due time. Simultaneously, unique new opportunities are emerging in Russia-Chinese relations.

We need to build a new town with the help of contractors from China. The president of The Chinese Association of Foreign Contract (CHINCA), Fan Tuchen, has drawn attention to this fact. The Turks’ departure offers new opportunities and potential for business development, he claimed.

In order to improve fruitful relations between Russia and China, it’s necessary to improve the legal foundation for cooperation between our enterprises, to share risks and to facilitate the implementation of construction projects. According to him, this will be difficult to start off, but it will be successful.

The chairman of the board of the “Avtodor” state corporation, Sergey Kelbach, has highlighted in his report the priority guidelines of “Avtodor”.

They include the creation and development of a national network of high-speed highways (ensuring projecting, construction and operation), the implementation of concession agreements, the realization of innovation programs in the road industry and the adoption of new institutions of governance of the road network development.

The governor of the Irkutsk region, Sergey Levchenko, has pointed out that the Siberian region has comfortable conditions for the development of business and called on Chinese companies and workers.

The work of the Forum’s plenary session ended with the signing of a memorandum of cooperation between CHINCA, the Russian Association of Builders of Russia and the Russian-Chinese Analytic Center.

The First Russia-Chinese Construction Forum will continue its work with sessions on the subjects “Infrastructure Construction”, “Construction”, “Construction in the energy sector” and “Construction materials”.

The event was organized by the the Chinese Association of Foreign Contract, The Association of the Builders of Russia and the Russian-Chinese Analytical Center.