3rd LD: Putin confident in Russia-China all-round cooperation

Russia and China are "close allies" with their ties running at a very high level and bilateral cooperation expanding steadily, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Xinhua.

"We see each other as close allies, so of course we always listen to each other, by this I mean we keep in mind each other's interests," he said in an hour-long exclusive interview here with Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao ahead of his Saturday state visit to China.

He noted that mutual trust between Moscow and Beijing has reached an unprecedented level and laid a solid foundation for bilateral cooperation, which now covers a variety of areas including trade, energy and infrastructure.

Although Russia and China cannot always reach consensus on difficult issues quickly, they can make them -- however difficult they are -- serve the common purpose of promoting bilateral cooperation, so they are always able to find solutions, added the Russian president.

Speaking of the current decline in bilateral trade value, Putin said it is merely a temporary downtick resulting from the current market prices of certain commodities and differences in exchange rates against the backdrop of global economic woes.

The most important task in Russia-China trade now is diversification, particularly boosting bilateral cooperation in high-tech areas, he said, noting that the two sides have taken concrete measures to improve their trade structure.

While citing fruitful bilateral cooperation in aerospace and nuclear power, he said the Russian side is also closely following the construction of a high-speed railway between Moscow and Kazan.

The 770-km track, now under Russia-China joint construction, is designed for bullet trains capable of running at up to 400 km per hour, and expected to cut the travel time between Moscow and Kazan from the current 12 hours to three and a half hours.

The project "it may very well be only the beginning of our broad cooperation in infrastructure," said Putin.

"Our cooperation in culture is also of great value," he said, adding that such programs as the Year of China in Russia and the Year of Russia in China are undoubtedly helpful to cementing mutual trust between the two peoples.

Meanwhile, the two countries have also witnessed steady expansion in bilateral cooperation in such areas as foreign policy, armed forces and military technology, noted the Russian leader.

"We have maintained contact regularly, and carried out consultations on global and regional affairs," he said, pointing out that such cooperation "is itself a stabilizing factor in international affairs." Endi