MOSCOW, March 23. /TASS/. Trade turnover between Russia and China may reach $300 billion in the next couple of years, Russian Security Council Deputy Head Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with Russian media outlets and users of the VKontakte social network.
Responding to a question from TASS, he said: "Sitting next to a Chinese colleague yesterday, I recalled that when I first went to China as part of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin’s delegation in 2000 - Jiang Zemin was still president then - our trade turnover was $8 billion. And, to us that seemed to be quite a healthy volume back then - in the billions, after all. And, now it is 185 [billion] and, most likely, in the very near future, this year or next, it will be 300 [billion], in particular due to the current situation and how our friends have been behaving."
The senior politician noted that "you simply need to draw conclusions from the lessons of history" and recalled that Russia and China had had various periods in their relations.
"But in recent years, they (bilateral relations - TASS) have been on an ascending track, and I have been observing them for almost 25 years now. Every year brings something new," he said.
Medvedev highlighted the fact that only quite recently our trade turnover with the European Union was $400 billion.
"Now it has shrunk dramatically on the back of the foolish decisions they made. Well, let God be their judge, they’ve lost much more than we have, in my opinion, although we, of course, have also suffered losses. As for China, it will be 300 [billion] and this means that we have chosen the right path. We are interested in each other, we complement each other at all levels of international communications. And as the president of our country said yesterday, we really do not have any points of potential controversy between us. Moreover, the [bilateral] negotiations are marked by a congruence of viewpoints on virtually all issues," the politician concluded.