Chinese Heihe Mayor Aspires To Create Trans-Amur Zone Of Economic Cooperation With Russia

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Chinese Heihe Mayor Aspires to Create Trans-Amur Zone of Economic Cooperation With Russia

The authorities of the Chinese border city of Heihe are considering the opportunity to create a zone of transborder economic cooperation with Russia on both sides of the under-construction highway bridge connecting Heihe and Blagoveshchensk, located in Russia's Amur Region, Heihe Mayor Ma Li told Sputnik

BEIJING (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd January, 2019) The authorities of the Chinese border city of Heihe are considering the opportunity to create a zone of transborder economic cooperation with Russia on both sides of the under-construction highway bridge connecting Heihe and Blagoveshchensk, located in Russia's Amur Region, Heihe Mayor Ma Li told Sputnik.

The bridge across the Amur River connecting Blagoveshchensk and Heihe will open in spring 2020. Its construction started in December 2016, with Russia investing 14 billion rubles (almost $211 million) and China providing 5.2 billion rubles.

"The transborder economic cooperation zone should be open precisely around the Heilongjiang highway bridge ... We are planning to allot certain territories on both sides of the bridge, where preferential tax policies will be offered," Ma said.

He added that the parties aimed to obtain added value via enabling advanced processing of both countries' resources.

Ma went on to say that while freight traffic, tourism, and trade contributed greatly to the bilateral ties development, it was necessary to constantly seek innovative forms of cooperation.

The mayor qualified the creation of the economic cooperation zone as a very efficient measure, expressing hope that it would be created soon due to stepped-up efforts by both China and Russia.

Between January and November 2018, the Russian-Chinese trade increased by 27.3 percent year-on-year to $98.75 billion.