Translated material
The road of a thousand miles
Russia does not want to increase trade turnover with China at any cost
Russia and China do not seem to intend to increase the volume of trade turnover and mutual investments at any cost. This conclusion can be drawn from the statement of Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov, which he made to Russian journalists yesterday after negotiations with his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao. “Talking about the volume of trade turnover at 60-80 billion dollars a year (these The parties plan to achieve these indicators by 2010. -- Ed. ) and not taking into account its poor structure is counterproductive,” Mr. Fradkov emphasized.According to him, investments in the amount of $12 billion that China plans to invest in Russia by 2020, “you need to know where and why” to invest. The Russian Prime Minister made it clear that the Chinese partners agree with this formulation of the issue. “In this sense, I am very satisfied with the negotiations,” said Mikhail Fradkov.
The head of the Russian government believes that the Russian-Chinese partnership has moved to a new quality, which is characterized by greater consideration of each other's interests. According to him, it is quite possible to combine these interests even when China prefers interaction in the energy sector (the prime minister clearly meant supplies of hydrocarbons to China from Russia) and access to Russian technologies, and Russia would like to supply China with machinery and equipment (the share of these products in the total volume of Russian exports to China has been steadily declining in recent years).
Meanwhile, the issue of hydrocarbon supplies still depends on prices. Beijing expects to buy gas cheaper than Europeans. As an argument, the Chinese side puts forward the fact that it is many times closer to pump raw materials from the fields of Eastern Siberia to China, compared to the distance from the Western Siberian mining regions to Europe. In response to these claims, Gazprom revived the project to build the Altai gas pipeline to the Celestial Empire - precisely from existing fields in Western Siberia (2.7 thousand km long). Yesterday, the first official estimate of the cost of this project was made - the chief engineer of Tomsktransgaz LLC (construction customer) Alexander Kadai, during the presentation of the project in the administration of the Tomsk region, said that the total investment will be $13.6 billion. This is almost three times more expensive than one line of the new Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Germany (including the onshore section on Russian territory). “Until the completion of work on justifying investments in the construction of the Altai gas pipeline, it is premature to talk about the cost of construction,” Gazprom said in this regard.
As a result of the negotiations, more than a dozen Russian-Chinese documents were signed, including agreements on the state border regime and on the encouragement and mutual protection of investments. It is obvious that the agreement on investments that Vnesheconombank will attract is aimed at improving the structure of trade turnover, as Mr. Fradkov spoke about. A memorandum was also signed on the completion of the development of programs for the development of Russian-Chinese cooperation until 2010 and an action plan to stimulate trade in machinery and technical products for 2007-2008.
Rosneft has agreed with Petrochina to create a joint venture for oil refining. Anatoly Chubais, on behalf of RAO UES of Russia, signed an agreement with the State Electric Grid Corporation of China on its readiness to supply electricity. It is planned to export approximately 3.6-4.3 billion kilowatt-hours to China. True, the parties have yet to agree on the most important thing - the price of electricity.
Yesterday, the third Russian-Chinese investment forum was held in Beijing with the participation of more than 600 government representatives, regional leaders and entrepreneurs from the two countries. In almost every speech, the refrain was that the current level of investment cooperation between the two countries is too low compared to their potential.
Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov (he arrived in China on November 5 to complete preparations for Mikhail Fradkov’s visit) and Deputy Chairman of the State Council of China Ms. Wu Yi agreed that, if mutually desired, the target for investment growth is $12 billion by 2020 -- may be significantly exceeded. “I am confident that the goal will be achieved ahead of schedule,” said Ms. Wu I. “$12 billion does not look like an unattainable figure, I consider it as a minimum,” agreed Alexander Zhukov. (By the way, the head of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, German Gref, who took on the functions of co-chairman of the forum, when announcing Mr. Zhukov’s speech, called him “the greatest optimist and generator in Russian-Chinese relations.”) However, the words spoken after by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov can significantly adjust the optimism of his subordinates. Deputy Prime Minister Zhukov is confident that the growth of investor confidence in Russia and China will be facilitated by an agreement on the encouragement and mutual protection of investments (it was signed yesterday following negotiations between Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and Co-Chairman of the State Council of the People's Republic of China Wen Jiabao).
German Gref recalled that following the results of the first two Russian-Chinese forums, held in 2004 and 2005 in Khabarovsk and St. Petersburg, 19 agreements were concluded totaling more than $2 billion. So far, however, judging by the words of Ms. Wu And, of this, only $200 million was invested. In general, the volume of accumulated Chinese contract investments in Russia amounted to $977 million at the beginning of this year. (For comparison, according to statistics provided by the head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Alexander Shokhin, in just three Over the past four years, Chinese companies have invested up to $6 billion in African countries.)
The Chinese construction project in St. Petersburg for the Baltic Pearl microdistrict, which involves the construction of 1 million square meters. m of housing and non-residential premises (more than $70 million has already been invested), Mr. Gref called it unique, since similar projects are not being implemented anywhere in the world. The minister proposed to consolidate the success and build a St. Petersburg quarter in Shanghai (the sister city of the Russian northern capital), or, as the minister put it, “a piece of St. Petersburg.” The task is not easy. Architects will need to try to organically fit a “piece” of the historical Russian city into the center of skyscrapers and multi-level road junctions.
During the forum, ten agreements were signed on the implementation of new Russian-Chinese projects. They, as German Gref said, “will add $1.4 billion to the total investment treasury.” Among these projects are the creation of an enterprise for assembling KamAZ trucks in the city of Dalyan, the development of the Berezovsky iron ore deposit, tin and zinc deposits in the Chita region, and glass production in the Leningrad region. As for the creation of automobile production by the Chinese company Great Wall in a special economic zone in Tatarstan, as Mr. Gref told a Vremya Novostei correspondent, the discussion of all the details of the project has not yet been completed.
“As the Chinese proverb says: “Every road is a thousand miles (Chinese measure of length. -- Ed. ) begins with the first steps." We have no choice but to walk this road together,” this is how Alexander Shokhin concluded his speech at the forum. And it seems that such a “doom” for cooperation between two great neighbors is worth agreeing with.