BEIJING, Nov 3: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Thursday urged his visiting Russian counterpart to work toward an early agreement on an oil pipeline from Russian oil fields in Siberia to China.

“In the energy cooperation area, both sides should seek the early signing of an agreement on the plan to construct a Sino-Russian oil pipeline,” Wen told journalists after talks with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov.

“Both sides must strengthen and broaden cooperation in nuclear energy, civil aviation, aeronautics and electronic equipment.”

Amid rising oil demand in Asia and fierce competition between China and Japan, Russia has decided to begin construction of a pipeline from eastern Siberia to the Pacific coast this year, instead of running it to China.

Despite the decision, Beijing has not stopped lobbying Moscow and is seeking an alternative pipeline to China’s Daqing refineries that border Russia in the north eastern province of Heilongjiang.

“Concerning the Russian pipeline to the Pacific Ocean and the issue of an alternative route, enterprises from both countries are working and consulting with each other to find a way to resolve this,” Fradkov said.

“After the research has been completed both sides can put forward proposals on the investment, technology and equipment.”

Fradkov said Russia had delivered 5.8 million tons of crude by rail to China last year and that the amount would reach eight million tons this year.

The talks were the 10th prime ministerial level talks between the two sides since both agreed to an annual high-level exchange mechanism 10 years ago.

Sino-Russian trade had quadrupled and was expected to reach $28 billion this year, Chinese Vice-Premier Wu Yi told the state-run Xinhua news agency, following talks with her counterpart Alexander Zhukov.

China further agreed to extend $200 million in trade credit to Russia in an effort to kick-start Russian purchases of high-tech Chinese products, officials said.

The agreement for the China Development Bank loan was one of nine accords, most economic and trade deals, signed by the two sides during Fradkov’s visit.

“The cooperation potential of our two countries is huge,” Fradkov told journalists.

“These agreements will help us to work toward fully fulfilling this potential, but if we do not remain active it may be difficult to achieve the goals in some areas where we have good development potential.”

Russia also expressed hopes China would balance its imports from Russia, which recently have been dominated by energy resources while its imports of Russian machinery and electrical products have fallen off dramatically.—AFP