Russia and China on Monday signed a landmark cooperation deal that sees each country build research and development facilities in the other, strengthening economic cooperation between the neighbors in a project aptly named the Silk Road.
In the agreement, signed in Moscow before Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Chinese counterpart Li Keqiang, the Skolkovo Innovation Center will host a 200,000 sq. m. devoted to Russian and Chinese research projects.
In return, Russia will have access to a 4,000 sq. m tech park to be built in a new industrial facility in the city of Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi province in the northwest of China.
“The signing of the agreement … is certainly a milestone in the history of our project,” said Skolkovo Foundation president Viktor Vekselberg in remarks to sk.ru.
“Today’s event serves as clear proof that Russia and China are entering an epoch of full-scale cooperation in the field of innovation. I’m confident that the park will become a home for R&D centers of leading Chinese high-tech corporations and a forum for close cooperation between Russian and Chinese scientists and entrepreneurs,” he added.
The signatories were the Skolkovo Foundation, the Shaanxi government, the Russian Direct Investment Fund and the Russian-Chinese Investment Fund.
The deal was signed on the eve of the Open Innovations Forum in the Russian capital, which this year is devoted to boosting Russian-Chinese economic cooperation.
The Silk Road was a transport route that connected European markets with those in the Far East, providing for trade in everything from silk to new technologies and know-how.
The Skolkovo Innovation Center is a 400 hectare site west of Moscow that is due to house hundreds of resident companies in state-of-the-art research facilities, a university and residential and entertainment zones.
Its purpose is to stimulate economic activity that develops the neglected high-tech sector and cultivate a new environment of entrepreneurship.