International Online Report (Reporter Li Jie): Sino-Russian agricultural products trade has become one of the highlights of bilateral cooperation. In 2017, the bilateral trade volume of agricultural products exceeded 4 billion US dollars. Russia mainly exports grain, flour and seafood to China, while China mainly exports vegetables and fruits to Russia. The two countries are constantly improving the level of cooperation in agricultural investment, agricultural product processing and production.
In recent years, the Russian government has vigorously developed agriculture and continuously expanded the grain planting area through preferential policies. In 2017, Russia’s grain output was 130 million tons, exceeding the historical record of 127 million tons in 1978 during the former Soviet Union. While satisfying the domestic market, Russia has been the world’s largest wheat exporter for many years. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stated that agriculture has become the locomotive of Russian economic development. "In 2000, we were heavily dependent on imported food, but now the situation has fundamentally changed. In the past four years, we began to export food to the European market, and the export volume exceeded the total import volume. Now we should increase the export of local products and deep-processed products and increase the added value. "
In 2017, Russian agricultural exports reached US$ 20 billion, surpassing the military industry to become Russia’s second largest industry. Putin proposed in the "May Decree" issued this year that the export of agricultural products will reach 45 billion US dollars by 2024.
China is the world’s largest importer of agricultural products. From July 2017 to May 2018, it imported more than 1.2 million tons of grain and food from Russia, a record high, including 840,000 tons of soybeans. Boris Dubrovski, governor of Chelyabinsk, Russia, believes that the food trade volume between the two countries has great room for improvement. "At present, our state exports flour, grain, macaroni, vegetable oil and other foods to China. Although the two sides have great development potential in the field of food trade, we hope that China enterprises will increase their direct investment in agricultural production and processing. "
Russia has more than 3 million hectares of arable land, and only two-thirds of the land is currently developed, which has great potential for agricultural production. China has obvious advantages in capital, technology and market. Based on this complementary advantage, China and Russia have carried out fruitful cooperation in agricultural investment and deep processing of agricultural products while optimizing the trade structure of agricultural products. Heilongjiang Province has achieved rapid development in agricultural cooperation with Russia in recent years. Wang Wentao, governor of Heilongjiang Province, said not long ago: "At present, our province has built 18 economic and trade cooperation zones in Russia. In 2017, the cooperative planting area of our province with Russia reached 8.7 million mu, and there were more than 200 enterprises engaged in agricultural development in Russia. Our province’s agricultural cooperation with Russia has formed a development trend of the whole industrial chain from planting and breeding to processing, warehousing, logistics and wholesale. "
According to Xing Zhiguang, deputy director of the Agriculture Committee of Heilongjiang Province, Chinese enterprises are currently planting varieties in Russia, including soybeans, corn, rice and vegetables, and are engaged in aquaculture. The two sides have continuously expanded the fields of technical exchanges and cooperation. Heilongjiang Province has established substantive cooperative relations with more than 30 Russian agricultural scientific research units and carried out in-depth cooperation in the fields of seed resource exchange and plant protection.
Harbin Dongjin Group, founded in 1995, has rented farmland in Khabarovsk Krai since 2017, forming a modern large-scale cross-border agricultural industry demonstration zone. Zhang Dajun, chairman of Dongjin Group, introduced that this is a large-scale industrial project integrating modern agricultural planting, breeding, processing, warehousing, port and logistics. "The project construction period is 5 years. Since 2017, the investment in equipment and capital has been 220 million yuan. The farm covers an area of 69,000 hectares, breeds 3,500 cows and has two dairy processing plants. Employ more than 200 Russian employees. "
Zhang Dajun introduced that the enterprise invested 170 million yuan to build an agricultural free port integrating port, warehousing, processing agriculture and logistics in Khabarovsk, with an annual storage capacity of 100,000 tons and an annual throughput of 300,000 tons of agricultural products, thus solving the transportation difficulties of Russian agricultural products exported to China and other regions.
Although large-scale agricultural cooperation between China and Russia has just started, it has shown great development potential and bright prospects.
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