Rustam Minnikhanov: Tatarstan and Shandong Province have great potential for development of mutually beneficial cooperation

On September 27, during a working visit of Tatarstan delegation to the city of Jinan, at the Tatarstan - Shandong Business Forum, Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov said that Tatarstan and the Province of Shandong have great potential for development of mutually beneficial cooperation and it is necessary to work aggressively to implement it. 

Minnikhanov thanked the representatives of the business community of the province for their interest in Tatarstan. He added that the Tatarstan delegation included heads of ministries and agencies, heads of the largest enterprises. “Today, we have a good opportunity to discuss the state and prospects for the development of Tatar-Chinese relations aimed at strengthening contacts between Russia and China. Moreover, the current and next years are declared Years of interregional cooperation between our countries,” Tatarstan President said.

He emphasized that Tatarstan attaches great importance to the development of interaction with China under the relations of two states.

Minnikhanov continued that the republic has gained a great experience of cooperation with Chinese partners.

Last year, the trade turnover between Tatarstan and China increased by 50 per cent and amounted to 565 million US dollars.

Today, Tatarstan is interested in promoting its products such as trucks, helicopters, ships, gas-pumping equipment, tires, compressors, medical instruments, machine-building and petrochemical products in China.

“We are also interested in developing cooperation with Shandong province in the field of high technology, engineering, electronics, energy, biomedicine and other industries,” he concluded.

In his welcoming speech, Minister-Counsellor of the Embassy of Russia to China Ivan Zhelokhovtsev emphasized that Tatarstan and the Shandong Province hold an important place in Russian-Chinese foreign economic relations. The regions have been closely cooperating for 10 years and this work yields significant practical results. As an example, he mentioned the interaction of Tatarstan with the Haier and the Weichai Power Companies.

“The Embassy of Russia in China fully supports the cooperation of Tatarstan and Shandong. We are ready to continue to extend our full cooperation to enhance trade, economic and humanitarian contacts between the regions,” Zhelokhovtsev said.