Yesterday on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum Vladimir Putin met with prospective investors of the Far Eastern Federal District. In particular, the enhancing of cooperation with China was discussed during the meeting. ‘’We are not just thinking about it, we are implementing a number of projects in the border areas in the construction of roads and bridges, and we will do more, don’t even hesitate – there will be work,’’ Putin said.
‘’A bridge is being built between Blagoveshchensk and Heihe in the Amur region, last year an intergovernmental agreement was signed. Now we are looking for investors, including Chinese ones, jointly with the Far Eastern Fond. Regarding the Nizhneleninskoye-Tongjiang railway bridge in the Jewish Autonomous Region, the project has started at our side this year, and we hope that we will be on schedule, and in 2018 it will be put into operation,’’ the minister of transport, Maxim Sokolov, said.
In turn, the Chinese businessmen urged the Russian authorities to pay more attention to promoting that it is possible to work in Russia, so that more Chinese entrepreneurs are aware of the opportunities which are available, including the low rate of the ruble.
The professor and director of the Center of the Asia and Pacific region of the Moscow International High Business School MIRBIS, Natalia Pecheritsa, agrees that the main obstacle for the development of business with China is a lack of information: "As a result of the sanctions, most companies that had worked with European countries turned in the direction of China. But the rules of the game in China and of foreign trade activities with China are completely different. This is one of the reasons for the decline in turnover. Of course, the most important thing is the ruble-dollar exchange rate, the insolvency of Russian companies, the loss of confidence in Russian companies on the part of Chinese manufacturers, suppliers and merchandisers."
Natalia Pecheritsa cited the example of placing orders for Chinese industries. "If previously the required payment was 30% to 70%, now Chinese companies are asking for 100% prepayment. And since it's still small and medium-sized businesses, and the solvency of circulating money from Russian companies has shrunk dramatically in connection with the credit policy and due to the financial policy of our country, the majority of companies have ceased to exist as such.’’
In addition, Russian entrepreneurs have too poor a knowledge of China and the business rules with China, and the Chinese side does not know how to do business with Russia, in general knows little about Russia. "If you take the south of China, particularly Hong Kong, the knowledge of entrepreneurs in the region is based on the British press. Therefore, the lack of this information leads to a sharp decline in turnover. Tomorrow the top issues will be discussed at the G20 summit in China, but there are performers, the adoption of highly important decisions is falling. And the greatest difficulties are at the low level. it is possible to declare very beautiful things, we can say that we are struggling with the risks, developing a program, but who will perform it at the bottom? It is necessary to make decisions not even at the government level, but still on the interprovincial, intercity level. Or to create joint institutions. There have been attempts to create an institute of the SCO, a Russian-Chinese business school, but they have ended in nothing for now, unfortunately," Pecheritsa complained.
