People view a model of CR929 airplane during the international aviation and space salon MAKS 2019 in Zhukovsky, Russia, Aug. 27, 2019. (Xinhua/Bai Xueqi)

Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend and address the opening ceremony of a major economic forum in Vladivostok on Friday via video link from Beijing, at the invitation of Russian President Vladimir Putin, China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying announced on Thursday.

The sixth Eastern Economic Forum, which opened in Russia's far eastern city of Vladivostok on Thursday, will inject more vitality into bilateral cooperation between China and Russia, experts told the Global Times.

The event, aimed at developing businesses ties and attracting national and international investors to Russia's Far East, will be held in a hybrid form from Thursday to Saturday at the campus of the Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok. 

Held annually since 2015, the forum was canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Song Kui, president of the Contemporary China-Russia Regional Economy Research Institute in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, told the Global Times on Thursday that the forum, in which China is a major participant, showcases Moscow's firm commitment to promoting cooperation with Beijing amid rising geopolitical uncertainties and the fallout of the global pandemic.

"The strategic cooperation partnership between China and Russia has entered the new stage of comprehensive development. China and Russia are not only good neighbors but also good partners, and the forum is expected to create a good atmosphere that cements these ties and leads to deeper cooperation," Song said. 

In 2020, trade between China and Russia reached $107.77 billion, exceeding $100 billion for three straight years, official data showed.

Observers said that bilateral economic and trade relations have moved from mere trade connectivity to all-round cooperation in recent years.

"China and Russia could further enhance pragmatic and deeper cooperation in the energy, aviation, robotics, new energy, agricultural and logistics sectors," Song said, adding that bilateral cooperation in tourism and culture is also expected to take off in the post-virus era. 

In a major example of increasing cooperation between the two countries, the long-range wide-body aircraft, the CR929, jointly developed by China and Russia, has completed initial preparations, and the first aircraft has been manufactured, China's Jiefang Daily reported on Thursday.

According to the official website of COMAC, the CR929's Chinese manufacturer, the aircraft is a dual-aisle plane to be jointly developed by China and Russia, initially aimed at the markets in China and Russia, while extensively meeting the global market demand of international and regional air passenger transport.

According to Song, Vladivostok, the largest city in Russia's Far East, is set to play a vital role in logistics links between the two countries, also an area of growing cooperation.

The track-laying work for the first China-Russia railway bridge - the Tongjiang-Nizhneleninskoye railway bridge - was completed in August and the project is set for a test run, before initial operations start by the year's end. 

The bridge marks a major step forward in construction of crucial infrastructure facilities linking the two countries.

The 7,194-meter bridge connects the two neighbors across the Heilongjiang River, also known as the Amur River in Russia, linking the city of Tongjiang in Heilongjiang with Nizhneleninskoye in Russia.