BEIJING - China and Russia have the conditions and the potential to realize their target of boosting bilateral trade to $200 billion by 2020, said Russia's ambassador to China.

In the first half of this year, Sino-Russian bilateral trade grew at a monthly rate of more than 30 percent, meaning that it could reach a total value of $70 billion by the end of this year, Sergey Razov said.

"By keeping the same growth rate, bilateral trade could reach $100 billion by 2015," said Razov.

During President Hu Jintao's visit to Russia in June, the two neighbors set targets for bilateral trade of $100 billion by 2015 and $200 billion by 2020.

Statistics from Russian Customs show that bilateral trade was worth nearly $60 billion in 2010.

To reach the target set for 2020, "we need to work hard with our Chinese colleagues. After all, we have both the conditions and the potential to reach this target", said Razov.

He said bilateral trade has "great vitality and huge potential to develop", which has been proven by its quick recovery to the level prior to the 2008 global economic crisis.

Looking ahead, Razov said "the main area for China-Russia cooperation is to enlarge two-way investment" in fields such as power station construction, upgrading power supply networks, and major natural gas and coal projects.

The new growth point for bilateral trade should be regional cooperation under the Cooperation between Northeast China and Russian Fast East and Eastern Siberia Program (2009-2018), said Razov.

In addition, there is great potential for cooperation in fields such as aviation, nanotechnology, biotechnology and agriculture, according to Razov.

Groundbreaking achievements in energy cooperation have been made in recent years including an oil pipeline linking Russia's Far East and Northeast China that became operational at the beginning of 2011, and will transport 15 million tons of crude oil annually from Russia to China from 2011 to 2030.

However, the two countries have failed to reach a final agreement on a natural-gas supply deal due to differences over pricing.

Russia's Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation signed a framework agreement in 2009 that envisioned shipping 68 billion cubic meters of Russian gas to China through the pipelines each year.

The two countries' leaders highly value energy cooperation and have been discussing the deal, which "shows that the countries' top leaders gave political support to this important bilateral project", said Razov.

"Our negotiations are proceeding," he said, adding that "what's more important is that we map out the way ahead for our future natural gas cooperation".

Russia is the world's biggest natural gas producer and China is becoming a major energy consumer.

Caijing, a leading business magazine in China, reported that China will import about 66 billion cubic meters of pipeline gas and 31.8 million tons of LNG by 2015.

China Daily