Staff members inspect the gas-distributing and compressing station of the China-Russia east-route natural gas pipeline in the city of Heihe, the first stop after the Russia-supplied natural gas enters China, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, Nov. 19, 2019. The China-Russia east-route natural gas pipeline was put into operation on Monday. The pipeline is scheduled to provide China with 5 billion cubic meters of Russian gas in 2020 and the amount is expected to increase to 38 billion cubic meters annually from 2024, under a 30-year contract worth 400 billion U.S. dollars signed between the China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) and Russian gas giant Gazprom in May 2014. The cross-border gas pipeline has a 3,000-km section in Russia and a 5,111-km stretch in China. (Xinhua/Wang Jianwei)

China-Russia bilateral trade exceeded $100 billion in the first 11 months of this year, and it is expected to exceed $110 billion by year-end, setting a record high, Gao Feng, spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) told a news conference in Beijing on Thursday.

As US protectionism has continued to disrupt the global supply chain, the two ??with steadily increasing bilateral ties ??are set to cooperate further and are also on track to achieve $200 billion annual bilateral trade by 2024, experts said.

In the first 10 months of this year, China's agricultural imports from Russia increased by 12.4 percent year-on-year, and exports of automobiles to Russia increased by 66.7 percent. New trade growth points such as agricultural service trade and high-tech products are constantly emerging, Gao said during the press conference.

China and Russia have huge cooperation space in bilateral trade, and the two have been ramping up efforts to optimize each other's trade structure to further unleash that potential as the US-initiated trade war has dampened the global trade system, Wang Yiwei, professor at the School of International Relations at Renmin University of China, told the Global Times on Thursday. 

Large-scale projects such as the East-route natural gas pipeline are expected to lift bilateral trade to new highs, experts said.

China has been Russia's biggest trading partner for nine years, and Russia is China's tenth-largest trading partner. Russia's foreign trade reached $692.6 billion last year, with its trade with China accounting for 15.7 percent, reaching $107.06 billion, a year-on-year increase of 27.1 percent.

MOFCOM data showed that in the first 11 months of this year, China's direct investment in Russia increased by 10.7 percent year-on-year, and newly signed investment projects were valued $115.38 billion, five times more than in the previous year. Projects invested in by Chinese companies in the fields of automobile manufacturing and e-commerce also successfully landed in Russia over the period, Gao said.

 "Apart from the traditional trade products such as commodities and energy products, what the two countries need to do now is to upgrade their trade structure and seek trade in more high-value-added products,??Wang said.

Experts said the US sanctions on Russia have also become a strong driver for cooperation between China and Russia.

Trade between US and Russia stood at $27 billion this year, the Russian Foreign Ministry has revealed. Washington sees this trade "as an excuse to keep the sanctions in place,??according to an RT report.

In 2018, the US accounted for a 3.6 percent share in Russia's total foreign trade.