Putin going to Beijing to discuss trade, international situation.

BEIJING, October 11 (Itar-Tass) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir
Putin begins a two-day official visit to China Tuesday.
Yuri Ushakov, a deputy chief of the government staff in charge of
foreign policy issues told reporters Monday the Russian government
attaches significance to the visit and the agenda of Putin's talks with
Chinese Prime Minister Weng Jiabao "is very tightly packed."
According to Ushakov, the agenda "embraces all the aspects of trade
and economic cooperation between the two nations."
He indicated that Russian-Chinese trade may exceed $ 70 billion at the
yearend.
"China has overtaken Germany /as regards the volume of trade with
Russia - Itar-Tass/ and has become our foreign trade partner number one,"
Ushakov said.
He admitted along with it that energy resources still account for 71%
of Russia's exports to China, saying: "We aren't very much content with
the situation."
Moscow hopes to diversify economic cooperation and heighten the
attention to cooperative efforts in the field of top-notch technologies,
like the ones used in space exploration, as well as information
technologies and innovative industries.
"The Russian side will raise all the issues it is concerned by,"
Ushakov said. He added that the case in hand is agriculture, metallurgy,
and protection of intellectual property rights in the field of
defense-related technologies.
Nor will the two sides bypass the energy sector problems.
On the international plane, the Russian and Chinese delegations will
consider collaboration in the format of the UN and the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization.
Although Ushakov ruled out the possibility of a discussion of the UN
resolution on Syria, he said that the Syrian problem as such might be
brought up at the negotiations.
"Most surely, the text of the resolution will not be discussed but the
/Syrian/ problem as such may be raised," he said.
The itinerary of the visit is split into two parts. The first part,
which is scheduled for Tuesday, is fully dedicated to talks between the
two Prime Ministers.
Putin and Weng are expected to begin the talks tete-a-tete, after
which the Russian and Chinese delegations will join them in full force.
The Russian delegation includes Deputy Prime Ministers Igor Sechin and
Alexander Zhukov, Agriculture Minister Yelena Skrynnik, Telecommunications
Minister Igor Shchegolev, the director of the State Atomic Energy
Corporation /Rosatom/, Sergei Kiriyenko, the director of the Federal Space
Agency /Roscosmos/, Vladimir Popovkin, as well as executives of
Vnesheconombank, the Russian State Corporation for Technologies, the
natural gas producer OAO Gazprom, and some other major businesses.
After the talks, the two sides are due to sign a big package of
interstate and inter-corporation documents. Deputy Prime Minister
Alexander Zhukov has estimated its total value at $ 7 billion.
Sources in the Russian delegation said the most important of the
documents is an interstate memorandum on modernization of the economy that
will embrace the spheres like energy-saving technologies, high-speed
railway traffic, nanotechnologies, pharmaceutics, and the construction of
fast-neuron reactors.
Vladimir Putin and Weng Jiabao will also sign a joint communique
Along with this, the package does not include a much-awaited agreement
on the exports of Russian natural gas to China.
On the second day of the visit, Putin will meet with President Hu
Jintao and parliament speaker Wu Bannguo.