MOSCOW, October 16. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold talks with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, on the sidelines of the One Belt One Road forum in Beijing on Wednesday, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov told reporters.

"The visit to China will begin soon - within hours. We will be paying special attention to talks between our president and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the margins of the third international forum One Belt One Road," he said, adding that the two leaders will discuss "current problems of bilateral cooperation and the international agenda, including issues of forming a fair multipolar world order."

According to Ushakov, the talks are scheduled for Wednesday. "A meeting between delegation heads and a photo session are expected at about 9:30 a.m. in the morning on October 18, and at 10:00 a.m. (local time - TASS) the opening ceremony of the third international forum will begin. Xi Jinping will be the first to speak. He will be followed by our president and several other officials. And after that, the bilateral part of the visit will begin," he said.

The Kremlin aid said that the talks will be held in two rounds: first, with the delegations and then one-on-one. "Despite the fact that the Chinese president will be very busy during the international forum - there will be a lot of guests, we will have full-scale talks, with negotiations involving delegations being held first," he noted.

Russia will send a representative delegation to Beijing, which will include Deputy Prime Ministers Alexander Novak and Dmitry Chernyshenko, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, Economic Development Minister Maxim Reshetnikov, Minister of the Development of the Russian Far East Alexey Chekunov, Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina, Director of the Federal Financial Monitoring Service Yury Chikhanchin, Direcor of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation Dmitry Shugayev, and RZD CEO Oleg Belozerov.

"A very big group will represent Russian businesses," Ushakov said, adding that among the delegation member will be Sberbank CEO Herman Gref, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) Kirill Dmitiriev, VTB CEO Andrey Kostin, Rosatom Director General Alexey Likhachev, Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller, Novatek CEO Leonid Mikhelson, Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin, businessman Gennady Timchenko, and VEB.RF CEO Igor Shuvalov.

The presidential administration will be represented by Ushakov, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, and presidential aide Maxim Oreshkin, who will be present at the talks between the two countries’ delegations.

These talks will be followed by a one-on-one meeting to be held during a working breakfast. "It is not ruled out that the leaders will speak tete-a-tete outside this format," he said, adding that such meetings typically center around very sensitive matters.

The Kremlin aide recalled that the upcoming talks will constitute the second personal meeting between Putin and Xi this year. The Chinese president paid a state visit to Russia in March. Prior to this, the Russian leader visited China in February 2022 to attend the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games.