On May 28, 2003, President Hu Jintao, who is on a state visit in Russia, met with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and exchanged views on Sino-Russian relations, particularly economic ties.

Hu stressed that the new Chinese leadership attaches great importance to the development of the Sino-Russian strategic partnership of coordination. He noted that the regular meeting mechanism between the prime ministers of China and Russia, which started in 1996, has played a significant role in deepening mutual understanding and trust, exploring new fields, forms and channels of bilateral cooperation, and elevating the level of cooperation. Hu said that both the above mechanism and the committee cooperation mechanism are effective. He wished that both sides could make further efforts to fully tap up the potential and give full play to function of the related mechanisms to create a new picture of Sino-Russian economic and trade cooperation.

Hu said that to expand bilateral trade and economic cooperation constitutes an important part of deepening Sino-Russian strategic partnership of coordination. The Chinese side feels satisfied with but should not be content with the existing achievements. In order to strengthen bilateral trade and economic cooperation, the Chinese side made three proposals. First, enhance the quality of economic cooperation on the basis of mutual benefit and trust, with large-scale economic and technological joint projects leading the efforts. Stepped-up efforts are needed to carry out major joint projects in hand and more projects should be launched in the high-tech sector and other areas with advantages, so that potentials for development could be intensified. Second, the two sides need to further open markets to each other, standardize the order of trade transactions and offer support for access of goods, services and capital to each other's market, to create fair and transparent conditions for equal competition for businesses. Third, both countries should always resort to friendly consultations in resolving new problems that might arise from economic cooperation proceeding from the general situation of the bilateral ties, so as to realize the win-win objective. Hu also passed on Premier Wen Jiabao's regards to Kasyanov.

Kasyanov said that he is satisfied with the achievements and positive trends of Russian-Chinese economic and trade cooperation in recent years. He said that the bilateral economic and trade ties are of strategic importance, adding that Russia totally agrees with Hu's proposals in further promoting the bilateral reciprocal cooperation. He said that Russia would work closely with China on the existing joint projects and hopes to diversify its exports to China in accordance with the industry policies and restructuring programs of the Russian government. The Russian side also expressed its appreciation to China for its support in Russia's bid to enter the World Trade Organization (WTO).