On March 10, 2010, Assistant Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping met with the delegation headed by Victor Basargin, Minister of Regional Development of the Russian Federation.

Cheng said that China-Russia strategic cooperative partnership is a model of relations between big countries. China and Russia at present enjoy close high-level exchanges and maintain a deep degree of political mutual trust. The bilateral pragmatic cooperation is showing strong momentum. China is willing to work with Russia to carefully implement the consensus reached between their leaders and various bilateral agreements, push forward cooperation in such key fields as energy, trade, science and technology and at local levels, hold a successful “Year of the Chinese Language” in Russia and raise the bilateral strategic cooperative partnership to a higher level.

He noted that local cooperation is an important basis of China-Russia relationship and the two countries have strong complementarities in that regard. Both sides should faithfully implement the Planning Framework of Regional Cooperation between Northeast China and Russian Far East and Eastern Siberia and establish the coordination and promotion mechanism of China-Russia regional cooperation at an early date; advance the cross-border infrastructure construction and complete the Heihe river highway bridge, Tongjiang river railway bridge, Luoguhe river highway bridge and Raohe and Heihe ports pontoon solid ice channels as well as the China-Russia land-sea transport channel at an early date; focus on the key projects of forestry, electronics, high-speed rail, infrastructure and cross-border industrial parks and build a number of showcase projects; discuss the best plan of protecting and jointly developing Heixiazi island and come out with a unified scheme as soon as possible; ensure the success of the “Year of the Chinese Language” in Russia, enhance cooperation and exchanges between the local governments, enterprises and youth of both sides and advance local cultural, educational and technological cooperation.

Basargin said that Russia and China enjoy great potential of regional cooperation. Russia pays great attention to the Planning Framework of Regional Cooperation between Northeast China and Russian Far East and Eastern Siberia and will jointly develop the specific implementation plan with China at the earliest date possible. The Chinese side is welcomed to participate in the bidding for infrastructure construction projects of the 2012 APEC summit in Vladivostok. The two sides should strengthen cooperation in the fields of coal, raw material processing, environmental protection and waste disposal. He asked the Chinese side to provide financing support for the bilateral cross-border transport infrastructure projects. Russia will make full use of the opportunities of Shanghai World Expo and Russia’s “Year of the Chinese Language” activities to promote itself, increase mutual understanding and deepen mutually beneficial cooperation.