Russian PM says Xi’s visit to Moscow “gave new impetus” to “a multipolar system”

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Mishustin anticipates that Russia and China will continue to expand trade agreements in national currencies

May 23. (EUROPE PRESS) –

The Russian Prime Minister, Mikhail Mishustin, highlighted this Tuesday from the Chinese city of Shanghai that the visit made in March by the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, to Moscow “gave a new impetus towards the construction of a multipolar system fair in international relations”.

“The Sino-Russian summit held in March was an important event that attracted the attention of the whole world,” he said, before stressing that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Xi addressed “strategic priorities for medium-term cooperation.” , according to the Russian news agency Interfax.

Thus, he has revealed that both countries will raise bilateral trade to 200,000 million dollars (close to 185,000 million euros) and has advanced that they will expand the agreements in national currencies. “I am sure that this year we will fulfill the task set by the heads of state of raising bilateral trade to 200,000 million dollars,” he stressed.

Mishustin stressed that Beijing has been Moscow’s main trading partner for more than a decade, adding that “during the first three months of this year, Russia’s position on a similar list in China has also changed, rising from tenth to seventh place”.

“This growth is accompanied by important qualitative transformations and, above all, by a decrease in dependence on the dollar and other Western currencies. If in 2021 only a quarter of the agreements between our countries were carried out in our national currencies, during last year it was almost two thirds,” he argued.

“We will continue to increase the independence of bilateral financial cooperation and, thus, we will strengthen economic sovereignty,” said Mishustin, who has also opted to simplify mutual access to agricultural markets. “Russian farmers are prepared to significantly increase their exports to the Chinese market and expand the range of products and supplies of plant and animal origin,” he concluded.

Xi issued an invitation to Mishustin on March 21 to go to China to reactivate the mechanism of high-level bilateral meetings, in the framework of a visit by the Chinese president himself to Russia to meet Putin.

During that trip, Putin stated that the peace plan presented by Beijing to try to end the war in Ukraine “could serve as a basis for finding a political solution.” The Chinese special envoy, Li Hui, recently paid a visit to kyiv to address the situation, after which Kiev stressed that it will not accept any peace plan that involves the loss of Ukrainian territories or the freezing of the conflict.