Cui Cunde, an official in charge of drug control with the Heilongjiang Public Security Department in Northeast China, said that anti-drug authorities considered that the international drug problem had spread alarmingly to the eastern Sino-Russian border.

He said a new bilateral agreement had been signed recently by his department and Russian authorities on exchanging information, catching drug dealers and testing narcotics.

Experts said that Vladivostok, the largest port in the Russian Far East, had become part of a major international maritime trafficking route.

There are at least 50,000 drug addicts in Heilongjiang Province, which borders Russia, and police dealt with 1,877 drug-related cases last year, up 35 percent over the previous year.

In a bid to tackle the problem, China has increased bilateral cooperation with Russia in a series of agreements.

In 1996, China and Russia signed a document on cooperation against the illegal trafficking and abuse of narcotics.

In 2001, China's Ministry of Public Security and the Russia's Interior Ministry strengthened cooperation against smuggling.

On June 26 this year, Chinese and Russian officials signed another agreement allowing joint action by the two countries' police forces if necessary.

Since the cooperation began, Heilongjiang Province has dealt with about 20,000 drug-related cases and caught more than 7,000 dealers.

It has seized a combined 10,000 kilograms of heroin, opium, marijuana and ephedrine, and destroyed 133 hectares of illegal poppy plantations.

(Xinhua News Agency July 26, 2002)