Rustam Minnikhanov: There is great potential for interaction between Tatarstan and Guangdong Province

On November 15, during his working visit to the city of Guangzhou (the People’s Republic of China, at a business forum with the participation of business circles of Tatarstan and the province of Guangdong, Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov said that there is great potential for interaction between Tatarstan and Guangdong Province and it is necessary intensify efforts to implement it.

Minnikhanov noted that today there is a good opportunity to discuss the current state and prospects for development of Tatarstan-Chinese relations aimed at strengthening contacts between Russia and China. He said that the current and next years have been declared the Years of interregional cooperation between the two countries.

Tatarstan attaches great importance to the development of cooperation with China under the Russian-Chinese relations, Tatarstan President emphasized. “The governments and business communities of our countries are making efforts to expand relations in various areas. Tatarstan is ready to actively participate in these processes at the regional level,” he said.

Minnikhanov noted that Tatarstan has rich experience of cooperation with Chinese partners. Mutual visits of official and business delegations are organized. The trade and economic representation office of Tatarstan is operating in Beijing and the Consulate General of China was opened in Kazan. Besides, there are cooperation agreements with a number of Chinese provinces, companies and universities signed and being implemented.

Tatarstan President said that today there is active interaction with leading Chinese high-tech companies.

Tatarstan pays special attention to investment development and attracting foreign manufactures to the republic. Haier Chinese Corporation is one of the major investors that launched a plant manufacturing refrigerators in Tatarstan.

Minnikhanov noted that trade turnover between Tatarstan and the People's Republic of China is growing and increased by more than 50 per cent last year.

Minnikhanov emphasized that Tatarstan is interested in promoting its products in China. These are trucks, helicopters, ships, gas pumping equipment, tires, compressors, medical instruments, engineering and petrochemical products.

“We could develop cooperation with Guangdong Province in the sphere of high technologies, engineering, electronics, energy, biomedicine and other areas,” Minnikhanov assured.

According to Tatarstan President, there is a potential for expanding ties in the sphere of culture, education, science, tourism and youth policy. Over 1,100 Chinese undergraduate and graduate students are studying at the universities of the republic. “We will be sincerely glad to increase their number,” Tatarstan President said.

In his welcoming speech, Deputy Secretary-General of the People's Provincial Government of Guangdong Lin Ji said that Guangdong Province maintains good foreign economic relations with Russia. The trade turnover between the parties amounted to 7.3 billion US dollars in 2017, it went up by 30 per cent as compared to the last year. Lin Ji emphasized that the leaders of the two countries Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping attach great importance to strengthening interregional cooperation between Russia and China. “We hope to increase the level of our trade and economic cooperation, to reach higher rates of mutual investments. We are sure that due to our joint efforts, Guangdong Province and Tatarstan will write new chapters in the history of cooperation for the benefit of the peoples of our regions and our countries,” he added.

Deputy Prime Minister of the republic - Tatarstan Minister of Industry and Trade Albert Karimov, Deputy Prime Minister of the republic – Regional Minister of Information and Communications Roman Shaykhutdinov and Chairman of Tatarstan State Committee for Tourism Sergey Ivanov made a detailed presentation about the republic.