OREANDA-NEWS. July 11, 2016. Russia’s Far East Development Fund and China National Gold Group Corporation are discussing plans to create a joint investment fund to finance gold mining in eastern Russia, the head of the Russian fund Alexey Chekunkov said.

The fund will focus on gold mining. China is the world’s largest gold producer and consumer. Output slid by 0.39 percent in 2015.

“We are preparing to set up a joint mining investment fund together with our Chinese partner <…> We have already held several rounds of talks with them,” Alexei Chekunkov, the head of the Far East Development Fund, a state financial institution, told RIA Novosti.

Russia’s Far East holds around a half of the country’s total gold deposits, as well as 40 percent of copper and large deposits of nonferrous rare-earth metals, according to Chekunkov.

Chinese investors are expected to contribute up to 90 percent of the funds to finance 10 percent of the project’s estimated cost, with the rest coming from the venture’s initiators and lenders.