MOSCOW, November 6 (RIA Novosti) — Increasing cooperation with China, including in the energy sector, is one of Russia's top foreign policy priorities, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday.
"Strengthening ties with the PRC is a foreign policy priority of Russia. Today, our relations have reached the highest level of comprehensive equitable trust-based partnership and strategic interaction in their entire history," Putin told the Chinese press.
According to Putin, the two nations have significantly enhanced their cooperation in energy sector.
"We have built and put into operation an oil pipe-line from Russia to China and concluded agreements providing for the increase in crude oil supplies … Construction of a large joint oil refinery plant has been launched in China. Projects relating to the peaceful use of nuclear energy are being successfully implemented," he said.
The Russian president also emphasized the importance of the gas deal between Moscow and Beijing, struck earlier in the ear.
"An obvious breakthrough was made this year by concluding an ambitious natural gas agreement. In May, we agreed on natural gas supplies to China through the eastern route," Putin said, calling the deal the "the largest long-term agreement" in the history of Russia-China relations and "global trade in general."
The estimated $400 billion contract between Russia's Gazprom and China's CNPC inked in May provides for the annual export of 38 billion cubic meters of Russian gas via the eastern route to China for a 30-year period starting 2018.
