MOSCOW - Visiting Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang met with Russian business people here Saturday and expressed his hopes for advancing China-Russia trade and economic cooperation.

Both China and Russia, the two giant neighbors, are newly emerging economies facing the tasks of national development. They also share economic complementarities and mutual political trust, which indicates that the China-Russia trade and economic cooperation have huge potentials and bright prospects, said Li.

Li hoped major Russian enterprises, many of which have already carried out diverse forms of cooperation with Chinese enterprises, could further promote their cooperation in China and yield more fruits.

Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov also attended the meeting and expressed support of Russia-China trade and economic cooperation.

While highly valuing the development of bilateral trade and economic cooperation between the two countries, Shuvalov insisted there is still room for further improvement and pledged that Russia is willing to improve its investment climate and to make concerted efforts with China to expand their cooperation into more fields.

Li on Saturday also attended a signing ceremony of bilateral trade and economic agreements, with Shuvalov at presence, and 27 trade contracts were signed, worthy of $15.2 billion in value.  

Li arrived here Thursday for an official visit at the invitation of the Russian government. He will also visit Hungary, Belgium and the European Union headquarters in Brussels.