China and Russia should make great efforts to upgrade their
agricultural cooperation to safeguard the crop safety for the two
nations, experts said.
China and Russia are rich in agricultural resources and there
remain great cooperation potentials between the two countries, said
Zhang Guangcui from northeastern Asia research center of Jilin University, pointing out
that the bilateral cooperation is still at a preliminary stage so
far.
The three provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Harbin in northeast
China are one of the country's main crop production bases.
Some experts say that the gross crop output in this region will
reach about 118 billion kilograms by 2020.
As a matter of fact, northeast China provinces have already
become the most important crop supply bases for Russia, Zhang
said.
A huge amount of vegetables are exported from China to Russia
through the Suifenhe Port every year and the city of Tongjiang,
Heilongjiang Province, has already established three crop sale
stations in Russia since 1999.
Apart from the agricultural products trade, China and Russia
have also established cooperative relationship in
agriculture-related research.
Many colleges in northeast China have started their exchange
programs years ago with their Russian counterparts.
The land and resources department in Heilongjiang signed an
agreement with the agricultural department of Russia's Jewish
Autonomous Region in June, 2004 and the province rented 70,000
hectares of farmland in the area for agricultural research.
However, many experts still hold that the Sino-Russian
agricultural cooperation is still at an initial stage.
Wang Shengjin, an expert in northeastern Asia affairs from Jilin
University, said the current agricultural cooperation between the
two nations are merely limited in the trade of primary agricultural
products and the development of the resources.
"The Sino-Russian agricultural cooperation only exists between
local governments, companies, nongovernmental organizations and
research institutions," Wang said, stressing that the central
governments of the both countries should pay full attention to the
cooperation.
Wang said the prerequisite of a good cooperation is a highly
coordination of the related policies from the both nations.
Both China and Russia should make endeavors to reduce trade
barriers and promote liberalization and facilitation of the
agricultural products trade.
(Xinhua News Agency January 24, 2006)