Russian President Vladimir Putin offered on Tuesday support for chinese companies who want to fill the niches left by Western companies that left the country because of the Russian military campaign in Ukraine.
“We are willing to support Chinese companies to substitute productions of Western companies that have left Russia”, he declared at the beginning of the meeting in an extended format with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, and the delegations of the two presidents.
After the start of Russia’s warlike intervention in Ukraine, some 120 Western companies from the most diverse sectors announced the temporary cessation of its activities in Russia or its definitive exit from the market, which affected the Russian economy, which seeks alternatives to these goods.
Record-breaking trade
In this sense, Putin celebrated the growth of trade between Russia and China, which reached record levels in 2022 “despite the consequences of the pandemic and the pressure of sanctions”, upon reaching 185,000 million dollars.
“We hope that this year Russia and China will not only reach a level of trade exchange of 200,000 million dollars, something that we agreed with our friends several years ago, but also They will exceed that levelhe asserted.
Defending an increase in the Chinese presence in the Russian market, Putin added that his country advocates increase the use of the yuan as an alternative to trading in dollars.
Use of new national currencies
“It is important that in mutual trade more and more actively used national currencies. It is necessary to continue encouraging this practice and expand the mutual presence of financial and banking structures in the markets of our countries,” he said.
The Russian president asserted that currently two thirds of the commercial exchange between the two countries is carried out in rubles and yuanbut called for expanding this practice to other markets.
“We are in favor of the use of the Chinese yuan in transactions between Russia and the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America,” he said, expressing the certainty that “these forms of payment will increase between Russian partners and their colleagues from third countries”.
For his part, Xi expressed his willingness to develop together with Putin a development plan bilateral relations between the two countries and strengthen coordination between Moscow and Beijing.
“Mutual trust between our countries”
“It strengthens the mutual trust between our countriescommon interests multiply, peoples come closer, trade and economic cooperation, investment, energy, culture and between regions develop,” the Chinese president confirmed.
Xi added that “Russia is accelerating the implementation of the 2030 national development goals,” and proposed “strengthen coordination and interaction to obtain additional results from practical cooperation”.
“I am ready to prepare together with you a plan for the development of bilateral relations and practical cooperation for the sake of flourishing and renaissance of China and Russia”concluded his brief speech.