Digitalization of Russian-Chinese trade relations under the conditions of sanction pressure

On July 3, at the press center of "Russia Today", a round table on "Digitalization of Russian-Chinese trade relations under the conditions of sanction pressure" took place, organized by the All-Russian public organization "Russian-Asian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs" (RAUIE) in collaboration with the Union of Chinese entrepreneurs in Russia, the Russian Export Center, and the Russian-Chinese B2B digital trading platform "Kifa".

The speakers at the event included:

• Zhou Lizhun, Chairman of the Union of Chinese Entrepreneurs in Russia,
• Vitaly Mankevich, Chairman of the All-Russian public organization "Russian-Asian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs" (RAUIE),
• Roman Genkel, Vice President of the Russian Export Center (REC),
• Sun Tianshu, founder of the Russian-Chinese B2B digital trading platform "Kifa".

The speakers discussed the problems faced by businesses due to restrictive measures and sanction pressure, as well as the opportunities for standardization and IT tools to address these issues, what has already been achieved, and what is yet to be done.

Special attention was paid to payment issues, customs clearance, document workflow, legal aspects, recruitment, and partnerships.

In his presentation, Zhou Lizhun, Chairman of the Union of Chinese Entrepreneurs in Russia, noted that the high volume of trade turnover in recent years has set an unprecedented record for Russia and China, and this is by no means the limit. According to forecasts, in the coming years, the trade turnover between the two countries may exceed 350-400 billion in US dollar equivalent.

The achievements in cross-border trade were illustrated by Sun Tianshu, founder of the Russian-Chinese B2B digital trading platform "Kifa", who emphasized the need for modern digital mechanisms for conducting cross-border transactions between countries. For example, by the end of 2023, the platform's trade turnover exceeded 6.7 billion rubles. This only includes imports of consumer goods. In 2024, the company launched imports of industrial goods and exports of Russian food products to China.

"In the coming years, we plan to increase the trade turnover to 150 billion rubles through the development of infrastructure for digital trading," summarized the speaker from "Kifa".

According to Roman Genkel, Vice President of the Russian Export Center (REC), Russian exporting companies, especially small and medium-sized businesses, are trying to transition to online platforms as much as possible. Through the REC platform, an exporter can already access over 100 digital services, such as product certification in the Chinese market, compensation for logistics, and information related to finding business partners.

Chairman of the RAUIE Vitaly Mankevich, in turn, noted that in recent years, Russian-Chinese relations have been characterized by particularly high dynamics and the overall trend indicates a constant growth in trade turnover and cooperation scales. According to him, digitalization allows integrating various processes to increase transaction efficiency. "A significant part of the problems and solutions offered by the 'digital' approach are focused on logistics and customs clearance," he explained, adding that digital solutions can also help standardize legal documents.

Mankevich believes that the Chinese side is showing great activity in digitizing bilateral trade relations. Many projects in this area are being implemented within the "One Belt, One Road" initiative.

"Under the auspices of special economic zones and hubs, digital trading platforms are being created, significantly accelerating processes and offering special preferential conditions, thereby reducing costs and the final product price for the consumer," he added.

Speaking about the prospects for the relations between representatives of the Russian and Chinese business communities, Vitaly Mankevich noted that "daily close work with business representatives helps the RAUIE identify their 'pain points' and find solutions at every stage of interaction, so we are well aware of all the difficulties that businesses are currently facing. So far, a significant part of them have to be solved 'manually'. But digitalization will help automate and standardize many processes, thus reducing time and costs."