China, Russia sign billion-dollar deals

Watch Video

Play Video

China and Russia signed a series of cooperation agreements worth billions of dollars on Tuesday.

The two sides also reached consensus on a number of points for expanding their relationship, 60 years after its establishment.

Vladimir Putin's first visit to China as Russian Prime Minister focused on shoring up trade, energy and political ties.

The two sides agreed to look after one another's core interests, including national security and territorial integrity, while deepening and expanding trade and energy cooperation.

They pledged to launch massive construction projects, increase investments in manufactured electronic goods, regulate market policies, and oppose trade protectionism.

They are also working on details concerning short-to-long-term oil and gas supply arrangements.

The verbal agreements were later formalized with the signing of over 30 documents.

The deals included a 500 million US dollars loan from the Agricultural Bank of China to Russia's state run lender VTB, as well as a major high-speed railway using China's domestically developed technology to greatly reduce travel time in Russia's far eastern regions.

A chief executive from Russia's gas export monopoly Gazprom said a preliminary agreement was also signed, which could mean that Russia will supply up to 70 billion cubic meters of gas per year to China.