Trade ties boosted with new financial initiative

Harbin New Area, a dynamic industrial center in Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, is beefing up support for Sino-Russian cooperation by expanding financial services, according to local officials.

By early 2019, the number of members participating in the Sino-Russian Financial Alliance, which is headquartered in Harbin New Area, had increased to 70, including 33 members from China and 37 from Russia.

The number has doubled from 35 when the new area was founded in early 2016 and is now playing an important role in implementing projects involved in Sino-Russian financial cooperation.

The alliance is a major platform in Harbin that finances investment and trade projects between China and Russia.

Harbin Bank, a founding member of the alliance, has facilitated four cross-border financing business projects in the past three years, with the total amount reaching 12.6 billion yuan ($1.88 billion).

More than 40 cooperative agreements have been signed with the help of the bank's cross-border financing platform, covering the services of capital clearing, local currency settlement, foreign currency exchange transactions and electronic banking.

Heilongjiang was one of the first provinces in China to carry out economic and trade cooperation with Russia after the launch of reform and opening-up.

The Harbin New Area, approved by the State Council in 2015, is the only State-level new area in China with the theme of cooperation with Russia.

By the end of 2018, members of the Sino-Russian Financial Alliance had signed syndicated loan agreements totaling 10 billion yuan with Chinese banks in the Harbin New Area, which had transferred 120 million yuan to Russian banks.

The online payment platforms in the new area for Sino-Russian cross-border e-commerce had been connected to 18 main cross-border payment platforms in Russia. As a result the settlement period has been shortened to three days from 10 days before 2018. The total settlement amount exceeded 4 billion yuan last year.

Harbin Bank, for instance, has provided more than 30 billion yuan of financing for Chinese enterprises in Russia by the end of 2018.

Finance is regarded as the blood of the real economy. The high-quality development of the Harbin New Area cannot be achieved without the support of the modern financial industry, according to local authorities.

The new area views the Sino-Russian financial cooperation as an opportunity and strives for more achievements in promoting the internationalization of renminbi in Russian markets and expanding the services of local currency settlement, foreign exchange transactions, electronic banking and mutual communications, said Wang Tieli, director of Harbin's Songbei district, a major part of the Harbin New Area.

Wang said the new area will strive to create a better business environment and more convenient platforms for enterprises of the two countries to invest in each other. With that in mind, the two sides will further promote all-round cooperation in industry, economy, trade, culture and tourism.