Russia and China are "close allies" with their ties running at a very high level and bilateral cooperation expanding steadily, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Xinhua.

"We see each other as close allies, so of course we always listen to each other, by this I mean we keep in mind each other's interests," he said in an hour-long exclusive interview with Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao ahead of his Saturday state visit to China.

He noted that mutual trust between Moscow and Beijing has reached an unprecedented level and laid a solid foundation for bilateral cooperation, which now covers a variety of areas including trade, energy and infrastructure.

Although Russia and China cannot always reach consensus on difficult issues quickly, they can make them -- however difficult they are -- serve the common purpose of promoting bilateral cooperation, so they are always able to find solutions, added the Russian president.

Speaking of the current decline in bilateral trade value, Putin said it is merely a temporary downtick resulting from the current market prices of certain commodities and differences in exchange rates against the backdrop of global economic woes.

The most important task in Russia-China trade now is diversification, particularly boosting bilateral cooperation in high-tech areas, he said, noting that the two sides have taken concrete measures to improve their trade structure.

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