BEIJING - Bilateral trade between China and Russia has climbed back to the level seen prior to the global economic crisis , and is expected to reach $55 billion to $57 billion by the end of 2010, a Russian trade official said on Thursday.

Bilateral trade jumped 43.4 percent year-on-year to $45.1 billion in the first 10 months of this year, well exceeding the overall trade volume of 2009.

China's exports to Russia increased by 72.6 percent year-on-year to $23.8 billion, while the country's imports surged 20.6 percent to $21.3 billion, Russian government figures showed.

The recovery period was marked by rapid surges in Russian exports to China, largely due to the latter's booming economy and growing demand for the country's industrial and natural resource products, said Sergey Tsyplakov, trade representative of the Russian Federation in China.

Conversely, as Russia's economic recovery is still underway, China's exports did not pick up until the second quarter of this year, and are slightly below the pre-crisis level, he said.

Despite the global economic crisis, there has been little change in the trade structure between the two countries.

Among the growth areas, China's exports of machinery and electronic products have recovered from the sharp decline during the financial crisis and doubled year-on-year during the 10-month period, accounting for 38 percent of its total export volume.

Trade in crude oil and natural-resource products accounted for 48.5 percent of the overall bilateral trade volume, compared with 50 percent in 2008.

"Cooperation between the two countries in the energy sector has achieved remarkable progress this year, and will become the major engine for bilateral trade development in the future," Tsyplakov said.

Construction of a crude oil pipeline was completed last month, which will transfer a total of 15 million tons of crude oil from Russia to China every year, with a maximum annual transportation volume of 30 million tons.

Meanwhile, bilateral cooperation in the natural gas sector is expected to strengthen in 2011, Tsyplakov said.

In addition, Tsyplakov urged more Chinese investment to enter the high-tech, infrastructure and logistics sectors.

According to official statistics, China's outbound direct investment in Russia increased to $2 billion in the first half of this year, and the figure is expected to reach $12 billion by 2020.

source:China Daily