President Dmitry Medvedev Thursday expressed concern that Russia's trade with its major partners had dropped by around a third since the economic crisis.
"Unfortunately, the scale of our bilateral trade has started to fall. Trade volumes have dropped by approximately one third since the start of the year with all our trading partners," he said at a meeting with Russian officials in this Far Eastern city.
"With some partners it's a bit more, with others a bit less. Of course this statistic does not please us."
Medvedev's comments came on the eve of a summit meeting in Khabarovsk with the European Union, Russia's largest trading partner which accounted in 2008 for over half its trade.
He was speaking in the second largest city in Russia's Far Eastern region, which traditionally has strong trade links with neighbouring China and other Asia Pacific states.
He told the meeting of Russian officials as well as regional governors from China and Mongolia that Russia's Far East needed to coordinate its economic policies with northeastern China.
"We believe that the task of economic recovery in the Far East needs to be coordinated with recovery in the northeastern regions of China," Medvedev said, adding that he had discussed this with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao.
He added that Russian officials were currently working on suggestions for a joint Chinese-Russian economic programme for the region.
Russia's overall trade with China — whose expansion Moscow has set as a major priority — plunged in the first quarter this year by 42 percent to 7.3 billion dollars (5.3 billion euros) amid the economic crisis, according to official statistics.
Medvedev also acknowledged that Russian firms were now competing with China and other Asia Pacific states in some areas in the Russian market.
"But the main thing is that even if we are in competition in some areas we are still close strategic partners," he added.
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