In early September, President Xi Jinping held the seventh trilateral summit in Beijing with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Mongolian President Hugo Khurelsukh. President Xi Jinping noted that trilateral cooperation has steadily developed in recent years and achieved tangible results. China stands ready to work with Russia and Mongolia to uphold the original aspiration of cooperation, eliminate external interference, and jointly promote high-quality development of trilateral cooperation.

As a path of peace and friendship for China, Russia, and Mongolia to jointly pursue development and promote prosperity, the China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor has made continuous progress. With the three parties upholding the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits and continuously deepening practical economic and trade cooperation, it has injected strong impetus into regional prosperity and development.

In recent years, bilateral and multilateral trade between China, Russia, and Mongolia has maintained a healthy growth momentum, expanding in scale and optimizing its structure. Data shows that China-Russia trade volume will increase from US$69.5 billion in 2016 to US$244.8 billion in 2024, with an average annual growth rate of 17.0%. In 2024, China-Mongolia trade volume reached US$18.62 billion, a year-on-year increase of 10.1%, a record high and exceeding China's overall foreign trade growth by 5 percentage points.

As Russia's largest trading partner, China's position is stable. In 2024, China-Russia trade volume accounted for more than 30% of Russia's total foreign trade; China is also Mongolia's most important trading partner, and China-Mongolia trade volume accounts for nearly 70% of Mongolia's total foreign trade, demonstrating a new pattern of deep integration and mutual benefit and win-win cooperation among the three countries' economies.

Furthermore, Chinese investment in Russia and Mongolia remains generally stable and continues to expand into diverse sectors. By 2024, China's direct investment in Russia will remain at US$10 billion, covering traditional sectors such as mining, agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fisheries, manufacturing, and finance, with significant growth in areas such as scientific research and technical services. Data from the Bank of Mongolia shows that Mongolia has attracted US$5.44 billion in foreign investment from China, accounting for 16.3% of Mongolia's total foreign investment. Investment in Mongolia is primarily concentrated in the mining industry, while cooperation is also actively expanding in trade, services, and construction.

The proportion of Chinese investment in Russia and Mongolia has fluctuated due to factors such as the global economic situation and geopolitics. However, Chinese capital remains generally stable and is well-received in both countries. While the scale of investment from Russia and Mongolia to China is currently relatively small, there is enormous potential for future cooperation.

As China-Russia-Mongolia economic and trade cooperation deepens, various open platforms continue to improve, strengthening their supporting role. First, infrastructure connectivity has achieved remarkable results. By 2024, approximately one-third of the national Class-A ports along the China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor will have been built, forming a three-dimensional network of road, rail, air, and water transport. Railway ports such as Manzhouli, Erenhot, and Suifenhe continue to see increasing freight volume. By 2024, the combined freight volume of Manzhouli and Erenhot ports will exceed 45 million tons, and the number of China-Europe freight trains will exceed 7,700, highlighting their role as key corridors.

Secondly, the development of various open platforms is progressing steadily. The China-Mongolia Erenhot-Zamyn-Uud Economic Cooperation Zone innovatively implements a "two countries, one zone, within the borders but outside the customs, closed-loop" model. Over 30 special customs supervision areas, including 16 comprehensive bonded areas and 14 bonded logistics centers, have been established along the route, achieving impressive import and export performance in 2024. Six key development and opening-up pilot zones, as well as pilot free trade zones and border economic cooperation zones, have jointly built a multi-layered, comprehensive cooperation platform system, providing solid support for deepening regional cooperation.

The China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor holds broad prospects, but it also presents both opportunities and challenges. China's economy is vast, its market is expansive, its capital is abundant, and its technology is advanced. Russia and Mongolia, on the other hand, possess abundant energy and mineral resources. The three sides have enormous potential for cooperation in areas such as infrastructure, energy development, modern agriculture, cross-border tourism, and the digital economy. The high-quality development of the China-Europe freight train system is creating new opportunities for regions along the route to integrate into the international logistics system.

Looking ahead, the three parties should further strengthen strategic alignment, deepen policy communication, continuously enhance infrastructure "hard connectivity," actively promote "soft connectivity" of rules and standards, and continuously expand cooperation in emerging areas such as green development, innovation, digital development, and health. Furthermore, they should deepen people-to-people exchanges and strengthen "heart-to-heart connectivity."

With the concerted efforts of all parties, trilateral economic and trade cooperation will surely yield more fruitful results, inject new impetus into regional economic integration, make greater contributions to promoting regional peace, stability, development, and prosperity, and propel the China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor into a new stage of high-quality development.