Moscow, Beijing agree deals worth up to $5bn

The Russia-China Investment Fund (RCIF) has approved fifteen deals worth up to $5 billion, according to the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund Kirill Dmitriev.

$1 billion has been approved and invested by the RCIF, and another $4 billion coming from co-investors and bank financing, according to Dmitriev.

“It’s very important to increase Chinese investment in the Russian economy and to extend Russian companies’ presence in China,” Dmitriev told journalists on the sidelines of the 20th regular meeting of Russian and Chinese heads of government.

He also announced that China’s Development Bank and Russia’s Vnesheconombank (VEB) signed an agreement on 10 billion yuan loan allocation for joint projects.

According to Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev who is heading Russia’s delegation in China, the two countries have a lot of prospective projects that could be turned into new deals.

The projects are linked with new types of energy, the exploration of new markets, as well as a range of innovative ideas, according to Medvedev.

The Prime Minister also talked about the necessity to create new investment projects and boost trade. Moscow and Beijing are sticking to the plans to raise their mutual trade turnover to $200 billion by 2020, Medvedev said. He marked the importance of cooperation between Russian and Chinese businesses.

Both sides discussed e-commerce which grew by 50 percent this year. On Wednesday, Medvedev met with Jack Ma the head of China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba, who expressed his interest in creating a platform that would help Russian companies export abroad.