The total trade volume between China and Russia exceeded the one trillion yuan mark in the first ten months of this year, setting a new historical record!

This is data recently released by the General Administration of Customs of China.

If calculated in US dollars, the total trade volume between China and Russia also broke through 150 billion US dollars for the first time in history in the first ten months. The trade volume in ten months exceeded the total volume of last year.

01

China's total import and export volume currently ranks first in the world, and maintaining a growing trade relationship with China is one of the goals of most countries in the world.

Or in other words, without trade with China, stopping imports and exports with China, any economic power will suffer serious losses.

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And Russia provides a new case, even in the face of the most severe sanctions in history from Western countries, but due to a significant year-on-year increase in trade imports and exports with China, it has avoided a serious recession in Russia's economy.

02

Russia is a major energy exporter, and about 20% of China's total oil imports come from Russia.

For most of this year, Russia has been China's largest source of oil. In June and July, Saudi Arabia temporarily surpassed Russia to become the first source country.Overall, China's oil imports from Russia have been continuously increasing.

Looking back ten years ago, China's oil imports from Russia accounted for about 8% of our total imports. By last year, this proportion had grown to 16%. And more recently, this proportion has further increased, surpassing 20%.

For Russia, due to the European Union's ban on seaborne imports of Russian oil, Russia has been making continuous efforts to export more crude oil to various Asian countries.

There are two major buyers in Asia, one is India, and the other is China.

China's oil imports from Russia mainly arrive in China through three methods. The first method is pipeline transportation, the second method is seaborne transportation, and the third method is railway transportation, with the first two being the main ones.

Importing crude oil from Russia is also important for our energy security.

If there were only seaborne transportation, once the Malacca Strait was controlled, our energy supply would face a big problem. But because there is also pipeline transportation between China and Russia, the dependence on seaborne transportation is relatively reduced.

From this perspective, trade in the energy sector benefits both parties.

03

Trade between China and Russia is not limited to oil alone. We can also see this trend from the changes in trade volume over the past decade.Ten years ago, China-Russia trade was close to 90 billion US dollars, and by the first ten months of this year, it reached 150 billion, with an expected full-year total of 180 billion, nearly doubling in a decade.

In addition to importing oil from Russia, China also imports natural gas, electricity, and other food products such as vegetable oils, chocolate, beer, beef, and more.

Due to the relatively weak light industry infrastructure, Russia also needs to import a large amount of mechanical and electrical products and textiles from China.

China's investment in Russia is also accelerating. Currently, the three major operators, Mobile, Unicom, and Telecom, have all entered the Russian market.

Perhaps, looking solely at trade growth, Russia benefits more.

In the first eight months of this year, China's exports increased by 8.5%. Imports from Russia, however, grew by 50.7%. Due to the blockade by Western countries, Russia's exports to China have surged significantly, greatly alleviating domestic economic difficulties.

But from a financial perspective, China's gains might be even greater.

The main benefits come from the continuous increase in the share of RMB payments. In Sino-Russian trade, RMB settlement has become the primary method.

Continuously enhancing the international status of the RMB is an important step for China to reduce its reliance on the US dollar.

Both China and Russia benefit from this, it seems that only the US dollar has become the loser.