OREANDA-NEWS. June 17, 2011. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said after talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao that the bilateral trade between Russia and China is expected to increase to USD 200 billion a year by 2020, sources reported.

The statement came after Putin and Hu launched talks on long-term gas supply deal, which will include the construction of two pipelines from Siberian gas fields to China.
Putin said "if we manage to reach an agreement, it will certainly give us an opportunity to develop economic ties".

Early this month, environmental authorities from China and Russia held a closed-door meeting in Harbin, the capital city of North China's Heilongjiang Province, to discuss the rehabilitation of the polluted Songhua River, which flows into a Sino-Russian border river and is the largest tributary of the Heilong River, known in Russia as the Amur River.

The two sides will further cooperate in controlling pollution on the river. They have also discussed the protection of biological diversity in the Amur River basin.