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Today, Chinese President Xi Jinping is visiting Putin in the Kremlin as formal talks take place as part of a three-day visit. With the strength of Sino-Russian under strong focus, this infographic shows how crucial China has become to the Russian economy over the last two decades.

Over this period, Russia has continuously expanded the share of its imports from China. As data from the trade portal Germany Trade & Invest (GTAI) shows, the share of the total value of Russia’s imports coming from China was around 24 percent before the start of the war. At the beginning of the millennium, Russia still sourced most of its imports from Germany (13.8 percent).

The most important import goods in 2020 included equipment from the field of communications technology as well as equipment for recording and reproducing images and sound. Russia also imports a lot of office machines and machines for automatic data processing. China, for its part, mainly imports crude oil and petroleum products from Russia.