Russia and China ink $6 billion in business deals

MOSCOW - BUSINESS deals worth US$4 billion (S$6 billion) were signed yesterday to crown Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Russia after a show of rapidly growing ties between the two huge neighbours.

'China was and remains one of the most important economic partners for Russia,' President Vladimir Putin said at the opening ceremony of China's national exhibition in Moscow. Mr Hu said it was 'the largest ever outside China'.

Addressing a lavish ceremony attended by hundreds of officials and businessmen, he said bilateral trade had grown five-fold to around US$30 billion.

A show of China's achievements, in areas ranging from textiles to space, covered 20,000 sq m of the Crocus Expo centre in northern Moscow.

The opening ceremony was followed by rushed contract signing: Five pairs of businessmen signed contracts at a time, faster than the announcer could read them out.

'All in all, more than 20 contracts worth around US$4 billion were signed,' said Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who oversaw the signing ceremony.

The agreements, which were on top of US$2 billion worth of deals struck in the Kremlin on Monday, covered areas ranging from the metals trade to the import of tomato paste.

But major agreements in oil and gas - which Russia produces in abundance and China is desperate to buy - were conspicuously lacking.

Moscow and Beijing, whose communist alliance changed to rivalry and erupted into a military conflict in late 1960s, mended their ties in the dying years of the Soviet Union and are now building what they say is a 'strategic partnership'.