Rustam Minnikhanov meets Member of the Political Bureau, the secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China Chen Wenqing

On 26 April in Kazan, speaking at his meeting with the Member of the Political Bureau, the secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China Chen Wenqing, who came to Tatarstan during his visit to Russia, the Rais (Head) of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov said he is sure that the stay of the guest in our republic will be fruitful and informative.

He reminded that today the republic is celebrating the Mother Tongue Day and the birthday of the great Tatar poet Gabdulla Tukay whose meaning for Tatars is as great as that of Pushkin for Russia and the great poet Li Bai for China.

Rustam Minnikhanov emphasized that during last years the Russia-China relations have reached an unprecedented level and this year the countries are celebrating the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations.

He also said that mutual trade turnover keeps growing and the joint statement of the plan of the development of key spheres of economic cooperation up till 2030 puts forward a task of ramping up the amount of trade of goods and services and deepening relations in a number of strategic spheres.

The Rais of the republic said that the attention given by leaders of our countries to bilateral relations open big opportunities for cooperation between Russia and China at the inter-regional level and added: “At its level Tatarstan also tries to make its contribution into development of Russia-China interaction by going to regular visits to China.”

He mentioned visits to Shanghai and Shenzhen and Anhui and Jilin provinces and informed that Tatarstan signed agreements with seven Chinese provinces and there are also a number of agreements signed between municipalities.

Rustam Minnikhanov said that there is a representative office of the republic in Beijing and emphasized that there is an annual growth of Tatarstan-China trade turnover. Thus according to results of last year it doubled and exceeded 3bn US dollars, with 60 % of all import coming to Tatarstan from China.

He also informed about a number of economic projects being implemented in the republic with the Haier Corporation and the Volga –Jiangxi Cooperation Council.

Rustam Minnikhanov also mentioned construction of international transport and logistics corridors, including the M12 highway and “Europe-West China” transport route.

He informed that Kazan is one of leading Russian scientific and educational centers and currently there are 2 500 Chinese students studying at Kazan Universities and concluded: “We are open for cooperation and ready for further development of our ties within the framework of the Russian-China relations.”

In his turn Chen Wenqing stated that within the framework of the “One belt - One road” project Kazan has become very popular with Chinese tourists. “I am sure that due to our joint efforts culture and tourism will become powerful forces for bringing our countries together spiritually. I am ready to exchange opinions concerning the development of cooperation between Tatarstan and Chinese provinces,” he said.

According to Chen Wenqing, China under strong leadership of the Chairman Xi Jinping is actively developing in social and economic sphere and in the terms of the long time stability. ”Achievements of Chinese economic development are first of all quick economic growth and second – long term pubic stability. In the first quarter of the current year the economy of China demonstrated 5.3% growth while the target yearly number is 5 per cent. And we are quite sure we will reach this number. During the last ten years the average annual growth of Chinese economy made 6.2% which is substantially higher than the growth of the world economy. So if we look at the numbers we can come to a conclusion that Chinese economy is growing very quickly and moves ahead,” he said.