Russia’s Industry and Trade Minister Anton Alikhanov said Tuesday that sanctions and market saturation are beginning to slow the surge in trade with China, tempering years of rapid growth since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“We are recording a certain decline in mutual trade… In the medium term, we should expect more moderate growth rates than before,” Alikhanov said at a Russia-China business forum that took place in the city of Kazan this week.
Trade between the two countries boomed after scores of Western companies left Russia in 2022, with turnover hitting a record $245 billion last year — making Russia China’s seventh-largest trading partner. But bilateral trade dropped 8.1% between January and July compared to the same period in 2024, totaling $125.8 billion.
Alikhanov cited three main reasons for the slowdown: Western sanctions and broader economic pressure, volatility in global commodity prices and what he called the “expansion limit” of Chinese goods in Russia’s domestic market.
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