The central banks of the two countries signed a currency swap agreement worth 150 billion yuan RMB or 815 billion Rubles (24 billion U.S. dollars) last October.

Chinese and Russian companies have been increasingly using the Chinese RMB to settle their transactions. In the first quarter, currency exchange between Rubles and RMB grew more than five fold year on year as Russian companies rapidly opened RMB bank accounts at a fast rate, according to data from Russian bank VTB.

Data from China's Ministry of Commerce also showed that the value of transaction settlements with the two currencies among Chinese and Russian companies grew 300 percent year on year in the first five months of 2015.

During his stay in St. Petersburg, Zhang will also attend the 19th Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum.

Zhang is the third senior Chinese leader to visit Russia in just over one month, following Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit in May and top Chinese legislator Zhang Dejiang's visit earlier this month.

Zhang's visit is aimed to implement the consensus that Chinese President Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin reached during Xi's visit to Moscow. The two presidents agreed to further expand cooperation in investment, finance and a number of other fields.