MOSCOW - Economic ties between China and Russia have seen marked growth and enjoy the potential for a further boost as the two sides work to overcome problems with trade structure and investment momentum, officials said.

Double-digit growth has been registered in two-way trade for eight years in a row since 1999. Trade volume hit a record 33.4 billion U.S. dollars in 2006, up 15 percent from the previous year, according to the Chinese Commerce Ministry.

Currently, Russia is China's eighth-largest trade partner, while China is Russia's fourth-largest.

China had invested a total of 935 million dollars in 730 projects in Russia by the end of last year, while Russian investment in China has topped 600 million dollars.

Joint-venture projects have been launched in such industries as resources exploitation, timber, household electrical appliances, communications, building materials and, more recently, in the energy and hi-tech sectors.

Yet, there is still something to be desired, particularly in trade structure, officials said. Machinery and electronic products account for a relatively small part of bilateral trade, especially among Russian exports, and mutual investment has not grown fast enough to give trade a strong boost. Not many large companies are involved.

Yu Guangzhou, China's vice minister of commerce, said China is working on a host of measures to encourage Chinese companies to sell more machinery and electronic products to Russia and help Russian firms promote their products on the Chinese market.

China and Russia are also in talks to create economic cooperation zones in Russia where Chinese companies can set up factories with lowered investment costs, Yu said.

With the start of the Year of China in Russia, a business forum and an investment conference will be organized as part of the festivities designed to promote bilateral exchanges.

In Moscow, a number of economic cooperation agreements are expected to be signed during a Chinese national exhibition, scheduled to run from March 26-29.

Russian officials, unhappy with the structural discrepancy in trade, have also called for change.

Konstantin Vnukov, director of the first Asian department at the Russian Foreign Ministry, said Russia delivers mainly resources to China, with oil and petrochemicals making up 54 percent of Russian exports, while consumer goods are China's major exports to Russia.

"The issue of improving the trade structure is on the agenda," Vnukov said in a magazine interview.

As China and Russia are working on improving their industrial structure and restructuring enterprises to boost their competitiveness, both countries should encourage the big firms that have a competitive edge in technology, finance and management to work together to achieve sustainable cooperation, experts said.

With China a member of the World Trade Organization and Russia expecting to join the global trade body soon, the irregularities in doing business should be ironed out to improve the trade and investment environment, they said, adding that both sides need to help companies to adapt to the market and to legal changes.