According to the website of Russia's Komsomolskaya Pravda on May 9, data released by China's General Administration of Customs showed that in January-April 2024, the trade volume between China and Russia amounted to 76.581 billion U.S. dollars, a year-on-year increase of 4.7%. Among them, China's imports from Russia amounted to $43.847 billion, a year-on-year increase of 10.2%; China's exports to Russia amounted to $32.734 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 1.9%. As a result, Russia's trade surplus was about $11.1 billion.

Overall, bilateral trade between China and Russia reached $240.1 billion in 2023. in 2022, it was more than $190 billion. But this is not yet the limit. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov said last year that by 2030, the figure is expected to run to $300 billion.

Meanwhile, the proportion of Russian-Chinese trade settled in local currency has increased to 92 percent.

According to the report, Georgy Ostapkovich, an expert at the Institute of Statistical Research and Knowledge Economy of the Russian Higher School of Economics, said, "China is a non-competitive economic partner of Russia. China's share in our foreign trade amounted to 35 percent, while just two or three years ago it was only 15 percent. And this share continues to rise."

Ekaterina Zaklyazminskaya, an expert at the Institute of China and Modern Asia at the Russian Academy of Sciences, added: "According to statistics, about one-third of Russian imports come from China. We are one of China's top five trading partners."

In 2023, Russia's main imports from China include cars and their parts, machinery and equipment, smartphones, computers, clothing and footwear, the report said. Russia exports crude oil, natural gas, coal, copper, timber and seafood to China.

Igor Yushkov, an expert from the Russian National Energy Security Foundation, said, "China maintains a leading position when it comes to pipeline oil, with the 'Skovorodino-Daqing' pipeline transporting 30 million tons of oil per year. In addition, about 10 million tons of crude oil are transferred to China via Kazakhstan every year. In addition, oil shipments to China by sea are increasing."

According to statistics, in 2023 China imported 107 million tons of crude oil (up 24% year-on-year) and 8 million tons of LNG (up 23% year-on-year) from Russia. In the same year, Russia supplied 22.7 billion cubic meters of natural gas to China via gas pipelines (mainly the Power of Siberia pipeline), about 1.5 times as much as in 2022.