China leans towards the idea of establishing a free trade zone with the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). The first round of negotiations on this issue was scheduled to be held in mid-October of 2016 in Moscow. However, later it was postponed due to unreadiness of the two sides. Nevertheless, the official meeting of the Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang with his Russian counterpart was held in St. Petersburg, as it was planned on 7-8 of November of 2016. During the meeting, more than 20 bilateral agreements were signed that entail cooperation in various areas such as nuclear energy, culture, transportation, industry, customs infraction etc. Although the issue of free trade agreement between the EEU and China was not in the official agenda, the Prime Minister of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev admitted that the amount of the total bilateral trade surpassed $40 billion since the beginning of 2016. He also underlined the importance of strengthening of the bilateral cooperation in New Silk Road project and bilateral trade in the context of the EEU.
Kanat Makhanov is a research fellow at the Eurasian Institute of the International H.A Yassawi Kazakh-Turkish University. He holds a BA in Business Economics from the KIMEP University from 2012. In 2014 he earned his Masters degree in Economics from the University of Vigo (Spain), completing his thesis on “Industrial Specialization in autonomous regions of Spain and Kazakhstan”. His main research interests are Spatial Economics, Economic Geography, Regional Economics, Human and Economic Geography.