ul activities begin to run rampant.(4) Exporting insurance problems. Now Russia is still distinguished by WTO as the high-risk country. When Chinese companies export commodities to Russian, Chinese companies are often required to get payment until Russian companies get receipts of goods. However, when Chinese companies want to import commodities from Russia, Russian companies send goods upon receipt of payment. In this situation, Chinese companies always have to bear all risks no matter whether they are exporters or importers. More important, because China and Russia have not established an efficient good exporting insurance system, many big Chinese trade companies have no end of misgivings when they want to enter the Russian market. (5) Because of the mentioned risks, Chinese leading trade corporations are still cautious of Russian investment conditions, though Chinese government has tried best to encourage them to invest in Russia. Recently Russia's Yukos oil company agreed to a symbolic deal with China. Yukos oil company head Mikhail Khodorkovsky recently signed an agreement on increasing next year's oil supply to China by 1.5 million tons. Not a big contract by world standards, but it is expected to become a milestone in Russian-Chinese relations. The contract has symbolic value - 1.5 million tons of oil is exactly the amount the limited capacity railway link to China can handle. Building a pipeline from the Irkutsk region through Mongolia and into China would be the only way to further increase supplies. The pipeline would have a capacity of 25 million tons to 30 million tons a year and would cost $1.7 billion. However, neither Yukos nor the Russian government has the money to finance such an ambitious project. The project will be realized only if the Chinese themselves can come up with funds. Indeed, if the ever-cautious Chinese do agree to invest in the project, it would signal the end of all the talk about a Russian-Chinese s...
