MOSCOW - As their strategic trust deepens, China and Russia are in constant endeavor to explore new areas and scales of economic and trade cooperation, bringing it to a new historic starting point, Chinese Minister of Commerce Chen Deming told Xinhua on Wednesday.

Related readings:  Chinese, Russian traders to benefit from local currency settlement  Chinese experts hail Wen's visit to Russia  China, Russia sign 13 deals valued at $8b  Beijing, Moscow join hands to fight drug trafficking

Chen, who is accompanying Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on an official visit to Russia from Monday to Wednesday, said the China-Russia trade cooperation has great potential and maintained sound development momentum, and is faced with an unprecedented development opportunity.

The two sides should seize the development opportunity, further improve their trade structure, change their pattern of growth, strengthen investment and economic and technical cooperation, expand cooperation in technological innovation, and constantly explore and nurture new growth points in bilateral cooperation, Chen said.

In the first ten months of this year, trade volume between China and Russia hit $45.1 billion, up 43.4 percent year-on-year. Trade volume for the whole year of 2010 is expected to exceed $50 billion, rebounding to the pre-crisis level.

The two sides have also expanded mutual investment. So far this year, total mutual investment volume has exceeded $3 billion. In 2009, China's non-financial investment in Russia totaled $413 million, a 73.5 percent growth year-on-year. By the end of 2009, China's accumulative non-financial direct investment in Russia totaled $2.02 billion.

At present, bilateral investment as well as economic and technical cooperation mainly focuses on vital bilateral projects, and next, the two sides should implement the Sino-Russian Investment Cooperation Plan, actively improve the investment environment, and encourage big enterprises and financial institutions of the two sides to expand cooperation in investment and financing, Chen said.

China is ready to encourage its enterprises to take an active part in Russia's mega economic projects in such fields as infrastructure construction, power grid upgrading and high-speed railway, Chen said.

Both sides are willing to expand investment in Russia's special economic zones, and will jointly construct and manage pilot projects there.

During the fifth China-Russia economic and trade summit forum that opened here on Wednesday, companies from China and Russia inked a total of 13 bilateral cooperation deals valued at $8 billion, covering a wide range of sectors such as finance, electric power, telecommunications, metallurgy, automobile sales and agriculture.

During a regular meeting between the two heads of governments in St. Petersburg, the two sides signed six energy cooperation projects with a total value of $2 billion, and the total value of trade and energy cooperation projects signed during the time exceeded $10 billion, Chen said.

Bilateral financial cooperation is also in full swing, Chen said.

China and Russia will expand local currency settlements for bilateral trade, announced Premier Wen and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at their meeting on Tuesday, one day after the yuan started trading against Russian ruble on the Chinese interbank market.

This marked the first step of local currency settlement between the two countries. The yuan's trading on the Russian forex market will follow in December.

Additionally, the two sides are constantly expanding the scale of their cooperation in the fields of financing, insurance, and bank cards,  strengthening coordination in the international financial sector, and deepening their financial cooperation, which have further enriched the contents of their trade cooperation, Chen said.