Putin says hopes for successful pairing of EAEU and China’s One Belt One Road project

ST. PETERSBURG (TASS): Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday he hopes for a successful pairing of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and China’s One Belt One Road initiative.
“We have absolutely concrete plans of joint work and we are comfortable with them,” Putin said at a plenary meeting of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. “I am sure we will be moving on successfully.”
According to the Russian leader, a number of concrete projects linked with this initiative are already being implemented. One of them is the construction of a motor road, with the Russian section stretching to Kazakhstan. “By the way, we are being late, because the Kazakh side is already through with it [its section of the road],” he admitted.
Touching on cooperation with China, the Russian president noted that about 100 joint ventures with Chinese partners have been established and some 13,00 high-tech jobs have been created on the territories of accelerated development in Russia’s Far East.
He drew attention to the fact that China is not in the habit of imposing cooperation on potential partners, including under the Belt and the Road project.
In his words, investments in this project are to reach 120 billion US dollars at the first stage.
A total of 70 billion US dollars has already been invested, he added.