Russia is China’s second-biggest trade partner among non-Asian states — Putin

Russia is China’s sixth-largest trade partner with all countries taken into consideration, while among nations outside the Far Eastern region Russia has become China’s second-biggest trade partner after the US, having outpaced Germany, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, Azernews reports, citing TASS.

"Russia is China’s sixth-largest trade partner," he said when answering reporters’ questions. "In fact, this is not true in the event of a purely formal approach" as statistics takes "also Hong Kong here" and other Chinese territories into account, the president added.

"Any country always has higher trade turnover with neighboring states," Putin noted. "Among non-regional countries we are actually the second in terms of trade with China after the United States, having already outpaced Germany on this measure," he said.

"Trade turnover that we are speaking about today, is really impressive," Putin stressed. "We have set the task of reaching $200 bln in 2024. And when we stated that in 2019, I will tell you frankly, hardly anyone believed that it was possible at all," he said. "At that time our trade turnover amounted to $100 bln," the Russian president noted.