(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-11-01 19:42

BEIJING -- Trade between China and Russia surged to $34.9 billion in the first nine months, up 42 percent from the same period last year, according to China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC).

The figure exceeded the entire 2006 level of $33.4 billion.

"Sino-Russia economic and trade cooperation has entered a new stage and we can certainly raise the trade volume to $60 billion to $80 billion," said Vice Minister of Commerce Yu Guangzhou.

The volume of machinery and electronic products traded between the two countries amounted to $7.3 billion in the first nine months, making up 21 percent of the total bilateral trade, according to the MOC.

China's exports of machinery and electronic products to Russia doubled the first three-quarters figure of 2006 to hit $7.1 billion, about one third exports to Russia.

Exports of high value-added products to Russia such as automobiles, engineering machinery, telecommunications equipment and electronic products were on the rise.

Russia's exports to China, ranging from aerospace equipment, nuclear reactors, machine tools to integrated circuits, recovered to report a 17-percent increase in the first three quarters.

Yu said the acceleration of China-Russia trade in recent years reflected the need and the reality of the economic expansion of both countries.

By the end of September, cross-border investment topped $1.6 billion, with Chinese investment in Russia at $1.03 billion.

China is Russia's third largest trade partner, and Russia is China's eighth largest. Bilateral trade has increased at an annual average rate of almost 30 percent for the past eight years.