Chinese Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng held a meeting with the visiting Minister for Trade, Member of the Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission Slepnev Andrey Alexandrovich in Beijing on March 24. It’s the first ministerial meeting between China and the Eurasian Economic Commission since Eurasian Economic Union was officially launched in January, 2015.
Gao said the Eurasian Economic Union follows the development of regional economic integration and is a big unified market that is coming into being. With mutual political trust and close economic cooperation, China is the main trade and economic partner of members of the Eurasian Economic Union. Bilateral trade in 2014 exceeded US$120 billion, and China has become the second trading partner of the Union. On the sidelines of his visit to Kazakhstan in September, 2013, President Xi Jinping proposed the initiative of “Silk Road Economic Belt”, which is positively responded by members of the Union. The “Silk Road Economic Belt” could make full matchmaking with the procession of Eurasian economic integration, do system arrangement well and inject new vigor into bilateral cooperation.
Slepnev said China is the first major economy to establish cooperative relations with the Eurasian Economic Union. The Union and its members share high consensus on the development of comprehensive trade and economic relations with China, and would like to start dialogue mechanism with China. The “Silk Road Economic Belt” is of significance to the upgrading of trade and investment facilitation and regional economic cooperation, and is in the interests of all parties. The Eurasian Economic Commission would like to further the communication and cooperation with China on Eurasian economic integration and the “Silk Road Economic Belt” , dig out more opportunities, and jointly improve the influence on regional economic cooperation and multilateral trade system.
The two sides also reached consensus on deepening China-Eurasian Economic Union cooperation and exchanged views on strengthening regional economic integration and cooperation under the framework of multilateral trade system.