This year, China Russia trade is expected to surpass the 1 trillion mark

China has long become the world's largest trading nation, leveraging its strong supply chain and production capabilities of "Made in China" to produce most of the global medical supplies and daily necessities during the pandemic, while exporting them worldwide.

Last year, China's total import and export volume reached 39 trillion yuan, breaking through the 6 trillion US dollars mark. In the first two months of 2022, China's total import and export volume reached 6.2 trillion yuan, continuing to achieve significant growth.

Among them, ASEAN is China's largest trading partner, which was briefly surpassed by the EU in the first two months of this year. Looking at the annual data, ASEAN is China's second-largest trading partner, followed by the United States in third place, and then Japan and South Korea. China has a trade surplus with ASEAN, the EU, and the United States, with the largest trade surplus with the United States, and a trade deficit with Japan and South Korea.

So, what is the trade volume between China and Russia? Russia has extremely rich oil resources and is the world's second-largest oil exporter, with a huge natural gas reserve, making it a typical energy superpower. China's industrial development has a large demand for energy, while Russia's light industry is lagging behind. However, China's light industry manufacturing strength is prominent, and it can be seen that there is a strong complementarity.

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The China-Russia trade volume broke through the 900 billion yuan mark for the first time last year, reaching 948.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 26%, setting a new high. It is foreseeable that China-Russia trade will break through the 1 trillion yuan mark in 2022, which is undoubtedly the case. So, what products does China mainly import from Russia, and what commodities does it export to Russia?

Russia's industrial structure is more focused on heavy industry, and the development of light industry has always been lagging behind, which has not fundamentally changed over the years. Therefore, Russia needs to import a large number of light industrial products to meet market demand.

The products China exports to Russia are mainly various types of mechanical and electrical products. Last year, China exported 436.4 billion yuan worth of goods to Russia, among which the export volume of mechanical and electrical products reached 268.4 billion yuan, accounting for more than 60%, and labor-intensive product exports were 85.7 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 20%.

In Russia, there are many Chinese brands. In the Russian smartphone market, Chinese brands occupy most of the market share. The top five in the Russian smartphone market are Samsung, Xiaomi, Apple, realme, and Honor, followed by Huawei, Oppo, and Vivo. According to statistical data, the proportion of Chinese manufacturers exceeds 50%, occupying the "half of the market" in Russia.

In March of this year, due to Apple and other manufacturers announcing their withdrawal from the Russian market, Chinese smartphone brands' sales in Russia surged, with major Chinese mobile phone manufacturers' sales doubling. Among them, Huawei's sales increased the most, with sales increasing by more than three times, and Oppo and Vivo achieved a twofold growth.

In addition to mobile phones, Chinese home appliance products and automobiles also have a large market in Russia. Haier, Midea, and Gree have become global large-scale home appliance manufacturers, exporting products to hundreds of markets worldwide. Chinese domestic automobile brands have also gone global and have established a foothold in the Russian market.So, what products does our country import from Russia, or what products does Russia export to our country? It is important to know that Russia is the largest source of our country's energy product imports. Last year, our country imported products worth 512.2 billion yuan from Russia, a year-on-year increase of 47%, with energy products accounting for 65%.

Energy products are quite understandable, mainly including oil, coal, natural gas, metal ores, etc., among which oil has the highest proportion. Last year, our country imported 260 billion yuan worth of oil from Russia, accounting for 50%. This means that half of the products imported from Russia are oil, followed by coal and natural gas.

In February of this year, the import volume of natural gas in our country decreased, with a drop of more than 10%. However, the natural gas imported from Russia increased by 120% year-on-year. In the process of energy transformation, the import volume of natural gas in our country is bound to increase. Russia is rich in natural gas resources and is naturally the best choice.

In addition to energy products, many people don't know that Russia is also a major agricultural exporter in the world. Our country also imports a certain amount of agricultural products from Russia every year. After all, the demand in the Chinese market is very large, and the amount produced by ourselves is difficult to meet the demand.

The agricultural products imported from Russia by our country include canola oil, barley, beef, etc. Russia is one of the world's largest wheat exporters. In February of this year, our country announced that it would import wheat from Russia. Therefore, in terms of agricultural products, our country may increase the import volume from Russia in the future. It is expected that by 2023, Russia's grain exports to our country will reach 1 million tons.