Putin, Xi to meet in SCO summit next week

According to the Russian Ambassador to China, Andrey Denisov, on Wednesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin plan to meet next week during a regional summit in Uzbekistan, as the Chinese leader makes his first trip abroad since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020.

Hong-Kong was his first destination in July.

Denisov told Russian agencies, "In less than 10 days our leaders will meet at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit" in Samarkand.

A growing friendship between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin has helped put the two countries closer together. The ambitions to end what China and Russia regard as America's economic and geopolitical hegemony further strengthened the diplomatic ties.

In 2021, Russia-China trade grew 35.8% to a record $146.887 billion and according to China's General Administration of Customs trade between the two global powers in just the first eight months of 2022 increased by 31.4% to $117.205 billion.

Even the share of national currencies in Russian-Chinese trade has increased significantly in recent years, per Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov, who added that under the new conditions, the goal of increasing Russian-Chinese trade to $200 billion by 2024 is an achievable one.

Customs data showed that China's imports of oil from Russia rose 55% in May, despite Western sanctions on fuel imports from Moscow over the war in Ukraine. The world's second-biggest economy imported around 8.42 million tonnes of oil from Russia last month, surpassing its shipments from Saudi Arabia.

Russia has long been a major provider of oil, gas, and coal, as well as food and other raw resources, to China's economy, which is now the world's second-largest and on track to become the largest.

The 2022 annual summit of the SCO Heads of State Council will be held on September 15-16 in the central Asian country, with a potential meeting as well between Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.