BEIJING - Trade between China and Russia was up 20.8 percent last year, rising to $84 billion, according to figures released Friday by the Chinese customs authority.

Estimates by the General Administration of Customs has showed that Chinese exports to Russia rose 14.8 percent to $42.9 billion last year, while Russian exports were up 27.7 percent to $41.2 billion.

China remains Russia’s biggest trade partner in terms of trade turnover. Russia estimated in 2016 that the annual trade flows between the two world powers were at $66.1 billion.

Recently, acting Governor of the Far Eastern region Andrei Tarasenko told Sputnik, that the turnover between Russia’s Primorsky Territory and China increased by 14 percent or $2.5 billion over the first nine months of 2017. Some 200 enterprises with Chinese participation are currently working in the territory, he said.

Russia is trying to develop its Far East federal district by improving its infrastructure and intensifying cooperation with Asian nations such as China, Japan and South Korea.

Meanwhile, President Xi Jinping, at the end of the previous year, expressed his readiness to enhance trust with Russia and to expand cooperation with Moscow in 2018.

Sputnik