China, Russia agree to increase annual trade to $200 billion by 2020

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - President Hu Jintao on Friday called for a greater representation for developing countries, while stressing the necessity to reform the existing international financial system.

Addressing the 15th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Hu said the global financial crisis has reflected the shortcomings of the existing global financial system and the deficiencies of the global economic governance mechanism in crisis management.

Related readings:  Hu calls for efforts for economic challenges  Hu Jintao to attend St. Petersburg  Forum  Hu, Medvedev meet for deepening strategic partnership  New era for Sino-Russian ties

Stressing that emerging markets and developing countries have played an increasingly important role in the global economy, Hu said a new global economic governance mechanism should reflect the ongoing changes in the world economic landscape.

"We should support and promote a bigger role for the Group of 20 in global economic governance, and boost the overall recovery and growth of the world economy," he said.

"We should actively perfect global economic governance, promote the building of a fair, just, inclusive and orderly international monetary financial system, oppose all forms of protectionism and push the international economic order toward a more just and reasonable development," he said.

Addressing the same forum, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called for a more active use of the Russian ruble and the Chinese yuan in a "more democratic world financial architecture."

St. Petersburg is the second leg of Hu's Russia visit. Medvedev held a lavish welcoming ceremony for Hu in the Kremlin in Moscow on Thursday, where the two leaders signed a joint declaration on major world hotspot issues, and witnessed the signing of several economic and technology cooperation agreements.

The two neighbors have also vowed to raise annual trade between the two countries to $100 billion by 2015, and $200 billion by 2020, compared with nearly $60 billion in 2010.

The two countries signed a power generation deal on the sidelines of the forum on Friday between China Yangtze Power and Russia's EuroSibEnergo company. On Thursday, China Eximbank and Russia's En+ Group inked an investment cooperation deal, to which EuroSibEnergo is also a party.

China Yangtze Power and EuroSibEnergo have agreed to construct three power generation facilities in eastern Siberia with a total capacity of 3 gigawatts. Two of the facilities will be hydroelectric while a third, a natural gas-fired plant.

Hu is currently on a nine-day Euro-Asia tour. He is expected to visit Ukraine between June 18 and June 20. According to the schedule released by the Ukraine side, Hu will pay a visit to Crimea first and then to Kiev.

Chinese assistant foreign minister Cheng Guoping said earlier that the two countries planned to sign a range of documents, including intergovernmental and interdepartmental agreements and commercial contracts.

Xinhua contributed to this story.