China, Russia to embrace first bilateral expo

HARBIN -- Extensive exchanges will be at the forefront when Chinese and Russian delegates meet at the first China-Russia Exposition later this month, according to sources with the event's organization committee.

Scheduled to open on June 30, the event is jointly being held by China's Ministry of Commerce, Heilongjiang Provincial government and the Russian ministries of economic development and industry and trade.

The event's predecessor was the China Harbin International Economic and Trade Fair initiated in 1990. It was upgraded to an exposition earlier this year to focus on bilateral cooperation.

During the five-day event, a variety of seminars on trade, application of satellite navigation systems, agriculture, forestry, tourism and financial cooperation will be held, sources with the organization committee said.

According to Sun Yao, Deputy Governor of Heilongjiang Province, the expo would be used to promote cooperation between China's Heilongjiang and Inner Mongolia and Russia's Far East and lake Baikal area.

The expo is also expected to help expand cooperation from goods trade to intensive integration of industry chains.

In the run-up to the event, the trade environment has been boosted. On Tianchi Road of Ha'nan New District, Harbin, a border warehouse area covering 3,000 square meters was put into operation this month, the first of its kind specializing in e-commerce with Russia.

Sources with the Harbin Business Bureau said the warehouse area would help develop the city into an important e-commerce and financial center in the Far East region.

Five e-commerce companies, including Shenzhen Sailvan Network Technology Co Ltd, have goods stored in the warehouse, which can accommodate more than 100,000 items.

Once Russian consumers place orders on the Internet, online store owners can immediately make shipping arrangements from the warehouse, avoiding domestic transportation, security checks, packaging and customs clearance and thus reducing the time of delivery by five days, said a commerce official.

At the expo, customs officials of both countries will explore cooperation initiatives to boost bilateral trade, according to the Heilongjiang Daily.

Russia is a major trade partner of China. In the first four months of 2014, trade volume grew by 3.4 percent year on year to $29.06 billion, official statistics showed.