BEIJING, September 09. /ITAR-TASS/. The recently set up Russian-Chinese investment cooperation commission held its inaugural session in China’s Beijing on Tuesday, discussing national currency swaps as well as a number of bilateral investments projects, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said on Tuesday.

“We have discussed infrastructure for the investment cooperation, expansion of trade in rubles and yuans, banking cooperation, possible launch of relevant accounts by Russian companies in Chinese banks, possible issue of loans in yuans,” Shuvalov, who is also a co-chairman of the commission, said.

An initiative to set up a bilateral commission on investment cooperation at the level of Russian and Chinese first deputy prime ministers was put forward following an official visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to China in May.

Besides the issue of the national currency swap, participants in the commission’s session also discussed the role of Chinese investors of high-speed railways in Russia and establishment of data centers in Siberia.

Last month, the Central Bank of Russia announced that the Russian and Chinese monetary regulators agreed a draft document on national currency swaps.

The press service of the Russian monetary regulator said in early August that the volume of national currency swaps and the time of their launch would depend on the demand for this instrument, adding that the swap agreement would boost the potential for using Russian rubles and Chinese yuans in trade settlements.

Russian President Vladimir Putin put forward an idea in Shanghai in May this year to create new mechanisms for managing Russia’s and China’s foreign exchange reserves to help make the ruble and yuan more resilient and contribute to better stability of the global financial architecture.

A currency swap is a foreign exchange transaction for the simultaneous purchase and sale of a specific amount of one currency in exchange for another currency with two different settlement dates. A currency swap is a wide-spread foreign exchange instrument, which has a larger share in market turnover than spot and forward transactions.

Establishing joint nanotechnology investment fund

Russia’s state-run technological giant Rosnano has proposed to establish a joint nanotechnology investment fund with China, CEO Anatoly Chubais told PRIME Tuesday ,following the first meeting of the countries’ intergovernmental commission for investment cooperation.

“There was a proposal to establish a joint investment fund, fifty-fifty Russian and Chinese money, with the goal of investing into nanotechnology with a geographical focus on Russia and China,” Chubais said, adding that China already invests “huge” money in the technology and “that is why we are interested in them”.

Chubais also said that China’s Deputy Prime Minister Zhang Gaoli expressed interest in the proposal and ordered to assess it.