China and Russia held a symposium in Irkutsk?Monday to discuss ways of boosting border trade and regional cooperation.

Head of China's National Administration of Energy Zhang Guobao and Russian Regional Development Minister Viktor Basargin co-chaired the symposium.

Basargin said the outline of regional cooperation between Northeast China and the Russian Far East Area and Eastern Siberia, approved in 2009, has provided new historic opportunities for bilateral regional cooperation.

It included 205 projects of cooperation between Russian and Chinese border areas.

Thanks to collective efforts from China and Russia, Zhang said, a number of strategic cooperative projects have undergone positive development, including the construction of China-Russia oil pipelines, steady advancement of bilateral electricity trade and the emerging coal trade.

As both China and Russia are currently in a crucial stage of social and economic development, Northeast China and Russia's Far East area share a great cooperative potential and interests, Zhang said, adding the two regions bear strong economic complementarity in different sectors such as resources, scientific technologies and industries.

Chinese officials who addressed the meeting also pledged continued endeavor to promote bilateral trade cooperation, in particular at the regional level.

The symposium mainly focused on 12 cooperative projects between China and Russia, such as a railway bridge over the Heilongjiang River (Amur River), a recreational zone on the Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island in the Khabarovsk Region, a wood-working plant in the Sakhalin Region, and a thermal power plant in the Amur Region.