Two cities straddling the Amur River, which marks the international border between China and Russia, have signed an agreement to cooperate on fisheries development.
Officials from Fuyuan, part of the Jiamusi municipality in China’s Heilongjiang province, signed an agreement with the local government of Khabarovsk, committing the two sides to cooperating on fishery production and processing in China’s northeast corner and in areas north of the Russian city of Vladivostok.
The agreement was signed 11 June, during the first China-Russia Fishery Products Cooperation Forum, which also included a business matchmaking event.
He Da Hai, the top Communist Party official for Fuyuan, said he wants to develop a brand for the city’s fishery products and sees the deal as the first step in attracting “large and well-known companies” to invest locally.
Khabarovsk Mayor Alexander Sokolov said that he hopes to see more Chinese purchases of processed and semi-processed fishery products from his city, which is connected by ferries to Fuyuan and the wider Jiamusi municipality.
The Siberian border region has become a priority for the Russian government’s Russian Far East Development Ministry in recent years, with the region’s role as an access point to Asian markets one of many reasons why Khabarovsk and other cities in the area have become focal areas for investment.
Seafood trading ties between the two countries have tightened following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as the imposition of sanctions against Russia by the U.S. and many countries in Europe. In 2023, Russia doubled its seafood exports to China, and exports to China now account for half of Russia’s total seafood exports.
However, given the historical tensions between the two countries, Russia could be pursuing development of its Far East as a strategic response to counter China’s rising influence in the region. The border between China and Russia was largely closed for decades while negotiators worked on formalizing the boundaries of the international border.
Russia only recently signed on to an expansion project building out railway lines connecting the two countries. Work has now begun on a CNY 5.7 billion (USD 785.9 million, EUR 730.8 million) project to upgrade the 258-kilometer railway line from Jiamusi to the rail transshipment terminal at Tongjiang on the Russian border.
