China and Russia have pledged to expand bilateral trade of machinery and electronic products, especially imports of Russian-made equipment.

Trade in the sector has grown by an average 52.8 percent annually for the past eight years. In the first 10 months, trade between the two countries hit $8.34 billion, accounting for 21 percent of the total.

"That percentage is too low. There is plenty of scope to develop (bilateral trade), since the two nations complement each other in this sector," said Zhang Yujing, executive vice-president of the China Chamber of Commerce of Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products.

Zhang said China's trade surplus in the sector is large. In the first 10 months, China exported $8.1 billion worth of machinery and electronic products to Russia, while imports stood at just $240 million.

"The competitiveness of Russian products is still weak compared with made-in-China products or those from the United States and Western Europe - in terms of brand image, after-sales service, product variety and Russia's export policies," Zhang said.

Alexander Shokhin, president of the Russian Union of Industrialists, listed the aerospace, aircraft, energy equipment, shipbuilding, telecommunications, electronics and hi-tech industries as areas where Russia could increase its exports to China.

He said Russian companies lacked capital in the past when bidding for Chinese projects. "Now some Russian banks have started to provide solid support to international projects."

Shokhin said collaboration between the two countries would go beyond bilateral trade to include joint production and technology exchange.

(China Daily December 12, 2007)