Russia-China partnership at best level in history: Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination is developing at the best level in history and the prospect is very good.

"There is no need to re-define Russian-Chinese relations. In fact, Russia and China have established a fairly good strategic partnership," said Putin in response to a question by Xinhua news agency during a joint interview by several major international media outlets in St. Petersburg on Friday.

Putin spoke highly of the 19th Communist Party of China (CPC) National Congress, which he said had created more favourable conditions for further development of bilateral ties in the long run.

"The latest decisions of the Congress had made our relations more stable and predictable not only in the medium period but in the distant future," he said.

Putin said with China's active efforts to push forward denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula and its vital role in resolving related issues, the situation on the peninsula has improved noticeably.

On the economic front, Putin expressed his satisfaction with the current momentum of bilateral trade relations.

"China is our largest trading partner and we have over $86 billion trade value each year. We are very satisfied with this," said Putin, adding that bilateral trade volume is expected to expand to as many as $100 billion in a year.

Noting that Russia increased export of engineering products to the Chinese market last year, Putin hailed the diversification and improvement in the trade structure as "encouraging".

Putin mentioned oil and gas, nuclear energy, renewable energy, machinery manufacture, space technology, aircraft building, chemical industry and agriculture as the major fields where the two countries can carry out cooperation in the near future.

Noting that this year marks the China-Russia year of local cooperation, Putin stressed that vibrant communication at local level has offered even greater impetus for bilateral ties.

"More and more infrastructure, roads and bridges are under joint construction by our two countries. People from different regions of Russia and China has made even closer contacts in recent years," Putin said.

"All this progress shows our relations enjoy very good prospects," said Putin, adding that Russia will work closely with China to push forward bilateral ties in the future.

Putin on Friday was jointly interviewed by major international media outlets on the sidelines of the ongoing St. Petersburg International Economic Forum which was kicked off on Thursday.

--IANS

pgh/