On 9 October 2013, Deputy Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Volga Federal District Alexey Sukhov and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China Cheng Guoping held the first meeting of co-chairs of the Joint Working Group for the issues of developing the trade, economic, and humanitarian cooperation between the regions of the Volga Federal District and the Upper and Middle Yangtze provinces. The meeting was attended by Tatarstan Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Industry and Trade Ravil Zaripov, representatives of the regions of the Volga Federal District and Chinese provinces, Foreign Ministries of Russia and China, as well as the State banking sectors of both countries.
During the meeting, the Russian and Chinese delegates discussed the progress in preparing the implementation of joint investment projects and elaboration of road maps in the humanitarian sector (science, education, culture, and tourism). The representatives of the Volga District made presentations of the most interesting proposals to be possibly implemented jointly with their Chinese partners.