Russia and China to set up joint news agency

Russia and China to set up joint news agency

“The proposal to create a joint news agency has been made at the Russian-Chinese forum that is currently taking place in Beijing. Also, there is an initiative to set up an expert panel that would host a permanent dialogue for Pacific Region countries,” Duma Committee for Mass Media chair Yuri Shuvalov told Izvestia daily.

According to him, both projects are likely to be implemented in 2016 - "the year of the Russian and Chinese mass media." Shuvalov has also been quoted as saying that "Russian and Chinese mass media are in the quality growth phase" while new joint projects "would contribute to mutual trust, adequate appraisal of events across the world and precise understanding of positions that the two nations hold on various issues."

“This concerns the whole range of international politics, economic development of the Eurasian continent and the junction between the Eurasian Economic Union and the ‘Silk Road’ economic region, because these two projects had been developed in two different countries, but together they work in synergy.” Shuvalov said, RT reported.

The Russian broadcaster noted that the Eurasian Economic Union was launched in 2015 as the Customs Union of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, and joined by Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.

"The new Silk Road," meanwhile, "is China’s project with the goal of establishing an economic corridor with Russia and Mongolia."

Russian and Chinese presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in May signed an agreement on cooperation aimed at "linking the development of the Eurasian Economic Union with the Silk Road economic project, along with a number of other deals in energy, trade and finance."