MOSCOW--Russia and China signed some 40 agreements Monday spanning energy, finance and technology as the Kremlin looks to deepen its strategic ties with its eastern neighbor to counter isolation from the West.
Among the more significant deals, Chinese banks agreed to provide credit lines worth more than $4.5 billion to Russian banks and companies, which have been effectively frozen out of Western markets by sanctions imposed over the Ukraine crisis.
Amid Moscow's continued standoff with the West over Ukraine, Russian officials are setting their sights on China as an alternative source of finance and business. Mr. Medvedev wants to see trade between the countries more than double to $200 billion, which is around half the current figure for trade with the European Union.
"Relations are really on the rise," Mr. Medvedev said, according to Interfax news agency. "I think that level [of trade] is absolutely reachable."
Russian state oil giant OAO Rosneft, which is also affected by the West's sanctions, said it has signed a deal to strengthen strategic cooperation with the China National Petroleum Corp.
Russia, one of the world's largest energy producers, has in recent years sealed large deals with China, one of its top consumers. Rosneft delivers oil under a 2013 contract worth tens of billions of dollars a year. As Western financing has dried up in recent months, Russia has offered China stakes in its oil fields, overcoming yearslong fears of Chinese encroachment in its far eastern regions.
The countries on Monday also signed an intergovernmental accord on natural gas supplies, which Russian state company OAO Gazprom said would allow a 30-year gas deal, worth some $400 billion and agreed to last May, to go into effect.
But Mr. Medvedev said talks on another deal to supply gas via the so-called "western route" would most likely be completed in 2015, rather than this year.
China's Export-Import bank will provide credit lines worth some $2 billion each to state banks VTB and Vneshekonombank, said the Russian lenders, both of which are targeted under Western sanctions. VTB said its credit line, issued in yuan, would be used for "a broad spectrum of products from China, from produce to high-tech equipment."
Leading Russian mobile operator OAO MegaFon said it had secured a $500 million loan from China Development Bank Corp. to develop its mobile networks and purchase equipment from Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. The Chinese company is MegaFon's main equipment maker, according to MegaFon.
Russia and China agreed to a three-year local currency swap worth 150 billion yuan ($25 billion) aimed at increasing trade in domestic currencies and cutting reliance on the U.S. dollar.
Russian No. 1 lender OAO Sberbank and Huawei also signed an agreement allowing the bank to purchase equipment directly from the vendor. Sberbank will also begin promoting Huawei products in the Russia's ex-Soviet markets.
"Until recently, Sberbank used high-tech equipment mostly from American and European companies," said German Gref, the bank's chief executive. "We are continuing and developing our cooperation with them, while at the same time turning our attention to alternative producers and providers."
| 