Putin expecting Russian-Chinese trade turnover to reach $200 bln before 2024

MOSCOW. Feb 22 (Interfax) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has noted the growing trade between Russia and China.

"Russian-Chinese relations are developing as we expected in the previous years. Everything has been progressing, developing. We are achieving new boundaries. Of course, this is happening in economic matters in the first turn," Putin said at a meeting with Wang Yi, Office director of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Foreign Affairs Commission.

"We set the goal to achieve $200 billion [worth of trade] in 2024. We had $185 billion trade last year, and there are all grounds to believe that we will reach our trade targets and that it may even happen earlier than planned. The trade has been growing," he said.

Putin also said in his opening remarks that Russia was aware of crucial domestic political events that recently happened in China and "definitely contributed to the strengthening of the country and creating conditions for its sustainable development in accordance with plans of the Chinese Communist Party."