OREANDA-NEWS Over the past ten years, the share of the countries of the Asia-Pacific region (APR) in the structure of Russia's foreign trade has more than doubled — from 29 to 66 percent. This was stated by Vladimir Ivin, Deputy head of the Federal Customs Service (FCS) of the Russian Federation, RIA Novosti quoted him as saying.

He called China Russia's key trade and economic partner. Its share in the structure of foreign trade of the Russian Federation has increased from 11 to 34 percent over this period of time. The share of the rest of the Asia-Pacific countries has increased from 18 to 32 percent since 2014, Ivin explained.

In turn, the share of the European Union (EU) countries over the past ten years has demonstrated the opposite dynamics and dropped from 47 to 11 percent. Thus, Ivin concluded, the EU has lost its status as a key trade and economic partner of the Russian Federation during this time against the background of the tightening of the anti-Russian sanctions regime.

Earlier, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov predicted a record growth in trade between Russia and China. According to him, by the end of 2024, the total volume of bilateral trade may exceed the maximum set in 2023. At that time, Russia and China reached a trade turnover of $ 240.11 billion. In the first seven months of this year, the figure amounted to $136.67 billion and increased by 1.6 percent. Such dynamics, according to Siluanov, may contribute to reaching a new maximum by the end of 2024.