Chinese investments in Russian economy to reach $4-5 billion annually - Russian expert

NOVOSIBIRSK, November 20. /TASS/. China will make $4-5 billion investments in the Russian economy every year, including $1 billion to Siberia and the Far East, general manager at the Investment Promotion Agency in Siberia Taras Demidenko told TASS on Thursday. He was speaking within the Siberian Economic Forum of Small- and Medium-Size Business “Russia-China: Practical Aspects of Cooperation”. “In 2011 [Russian President] Vladimir Putin set the task to bring the volume of investments to $12 billion by 2020. Now the volume of investments in Russia reaches over $7 billion. The turn to new political and economic cooperation will facilitate a new flow of investments,” he said. “In 2013 China’s investments in Russia amounted to $4 billion. If there is the growth, this year they should be over $4 billion. We should be guided approximately by this figure in the future - $4-5 billion per year. As for Siberia, I believe that we’ll be able to find projects of $1 million annually,” Demidenko said. The parties are working out 25 projects, which can be realised with the participation of Chinese investors in Siberia and the Far East. Another 22 projects are now being implemented and technical documents are being prepared over four projects, he said. Chinese investors show interest in projects in high tech, energy saving and energy, manufacturing sector, machine-building, production and processing of mineral resources, agriculture and the development of services sector, Demidenko said. “A big lumber factory is built in Tomsk. There are several interesting projects for production of mineral resources in Krasnoyarsk Territory. This allows us to use our resources, produce an additional currency inflow, create new jobs and increase GRP [Gross Regional Product],” he said. TASS is a general information partner of the Siberian Economic Forum of Small- and Medium-Size Business “Russia-China: Practical Aspects of Cooperation”. Read more