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China's Hu eyes energy imports on Russia visit
Reuter/pool
Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) shakes hands with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao during a meeting in the Kremlin in Moscow March 26, 2007.
By Dario Thuburn
AFP
MOSCOW
Petroleumworld.com 03 26 07
Chinese President Hu Jintao held crucial talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin as part of a global drive to secure new energy sources for China.
Co-operation in the energy sphere "will give a tangible impulse to economic growth and will strengthen the energy security of Russia and China," said a joint declaration signed by the two leaders.
The declaration said that the two countries would further develop oil, gas and electricity ties and "large bilateral co-operation projects in the energy sphere."
Russian and Chinese officials also signed an agreement on boosting shipments of Russian oil to China by rail. Eleven out of the 15 million tonnes of oil exports to China from Russia last year were transported by rail.
Agreements were also signed between Russian and Chinese banks and between the space agencies of the two countries. Russian media earlier reported that deals worth four billion dollars would be signed during Hu's visit.
The leadership of energy-hungry China is keen to obtain guarantees of increased oil and gas deliveries from Russia, the biggest energy producer in the world, analysts said.
Hu was in Moscow on Monday at the start of a three-day visit that will also take him to Tatarstan, a mainly Muslim province in central Russia that has extensive oil reserves and high levels of foreign investment.
His trip to Russia follows a 12-day tour to eight African nations last month that focused on boosting Chinese investment in natural resources and securing oil imports from war-torn Sudan.
The visit is also expected to touch on Chinese worries about delays in the construction of a planned oil pipeline from the fields of Siberia to the Chinese oil hub of Daqing, the Kommersant daily reported on Monday.
Hu and Putin talked up strong diplomatic ties between their countries, which have taken closely aligned positions in talks meant to end North Korea's nuclear weapons programme and stem Iran's nuclear ambitions.
"Russia and China emphasise that the problem of Iran's nuclear programme should be resolved exclusively in a peaceful way, through negotiations," the joint declaration said."Russia and China will make every effort to ensure the rapid start of negotiations and to find a long-term, all-encompassing and mutually acceptable resolution to the Iranian nuclear problem," the declaration continued.
The two leaders also welcomed the "positive dynamic" in six-party talks in Beijing aimed at curbing North Korea's nuclear programme and called for a "full and all-encompassing solution" to the controversy.
Hu said ahead of the trip, his third to Russia since becoming president, that the visit would further cement economic and diplomatic relations that have grown significantly since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
But Russian newspapers said that behind the high-flown rhetoric, Hu's trip would be about hard-nosed business bargaining.
"Behind the ceremonial facade, the Chinese president is in for some tense negotiations," Kommersant said. The Nezavisimaya Gazeta ran a headline reading: "Difficult Neighbour: The imbalance between Russia and China is growing."
Among the possible sources of discord were Russian concerns about China's space ambitions and Chinese worries about the quality of Russian arms imports, Kommersant said.Nearly 200 Chinese companies selling everything from aerospace technology to tea will showcase their products during the visit at a trade exhibition in Moscow, China's biggest ever in a foreign country.
Both sides said bilateral trade jumped over the past year, though their statistics differed: China said trade grew 15 percent in 2006, while Russia said trade grew 43 percent over the same period.
AFP 26 1620 GMT 03 07
Copyright© 2007 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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