Representatives from both Chinese and Russian media setups called for closer cooperation to improve their international communication ability and have larger say on the global area, Xinhua reported.

They are here at the China-Russia Media Forum, which focuses on how to improve international communication in the era of all media, to discuss new media exchange and cooperation and media's role in promoting the integration of China's Silk Road Economic Belt initiative with the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union framework.

As the years of 2016 and 2017 will be the Year of China-Russia Media Communication, Tian Shubin, president of Xinhuanet, said the agency will take this opportunity and follow the trend of media integration to enhance cooperation with Russian counterparts in new media development, media integration and the Internet cultural industry, so as to play a more positive role in promoting the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination.

Representatives from the Chinese side believed that as the new media industry is flourishing, the media of China and Russia should boost coordination in telling stories of mutual concerns or about bilateral relations by exchange of resources, helping each other with comparative advantages, a cross-regional flow of information that will amplify their voice.

Sergey Mikhaylov, director-general of the Tass news agency, said that with a long history of news reporting in Asia-Pacific, Tass has kept a close relationship with media outlets in the region.

Mikhaylov added that Tass stands ready to develop an information partnership with Chinese media, and expressed his confidence in achieving win-win results with concerted efforts.

The forum showed the willingness of peoples of the two nations to know more and get more information about the other side, and the desire of their media to beef up coordination in international communication, Dmitry Kiselyov, director-general of Rossiya Segodnya, said on the sidelines of the forum.