Trade turnover between the two countries will “undoubtedly” reach the target of $200 billion by 2024, Alexey Kalachev says

Unprecedented Western sanctions on Russia have given Chinese firms the chance to expand their presence in the Russian market, an opportunity they have already taken advantage of, the head of the International Center for Joint Initiatives, Alexey Kalachev, told RT Arabic on Wednesday.

“The crisis is a font of new opportunities, and these new opportunities come in the form of new companies which can now enter the Russian market quite freely and at the same time prove their reliability and quality of their products,” Kalachev said on the sidelines of the seventh annual Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) currently underway in Vladivostok.

He said that while there are some businesses that fear sanctions that they could face for dealing with Russia, “most companies openly declare their intentions to work here.”

Kalachev, whose agency was established to facilitate cooperation between Russian and foreign firms under sanctions, said his work is currently focused on establishing links with China in such spheres as farming, car manufacturing, IT technology and construction.

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A number of cooperation agreements with Chinese companies have been signed at the EEF this week, including a deal with China State Construction Engineering Corporation, the largest construction company in the world by revenue, for the development of several sites in Moscow and St. Petersburg by 2024. Deals were also inked with resources developer NFC and Sunny Machinery Factory.

Given the dynamics of trade and the increasing cooperation between China and Russia over the past several months, Kalachev projects the trade turnover between the two countries to reach the $200 billion target by 2024, and possibly even earlier.

“The dynamics of trade with China are growing rapidly. Last year we reached $146 billion, and in the first seven months of this year $97 billion… I think that given the rate at which the turnover is developing, we will undoubtedly reach [the target],” he said.

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