＂Most Difficult Year＂ Sino-Russian Bilateral Trade in 2009

Since the meeting between Rajiv Gandhi and Deng Xiaoping more than 20 years ago, China and India, have been seeking to reach a wider range of cooperative relationship. In 2008, the trade volume reached US$52 billion, making China becoming India＇s largest goods trade partner, while India became China＇s tenth largest trading partner. According to Chinese customs statistics, in November 2009, Sino-Indian bilateral trade volume reached US$3.972 billion, up 37.9% comparing the same period of last year. This is the first positive growth that the trade volume has declined continually since January in 2009.

Wider Fields to Be Explored Between China and India

Russia is one of China's most important trading partners.Severely affected by last year's financial crisis,Sino-Russian bilateral trade has fluctuated greatly.Recently in Beijing,Russian Ambassador to China Sergey Razov said that the volume of bilateral trade has declined sharply last year,and he predicted that in 2009 trade volume declined by 25% or even more.