The CTA President Agostinho Vuma addressed at the plenary session at the Russia-Africa Economic Forum held in Sochi on how Russian and African business associations can develop joint projects as a starting point for lasting trade partnerships where he highlighted CTA’s role in promoting business cooperation and what Russian associations can do to develop partnerships that result in the exchange of the know-how and capacity building and benefit sharing between Russia and African countries. He stressed that for such cooperation to reach other levels in economic terms, Russia must set up a specific fund.
At the plenary session, attended by businessmen from Russian and from various African countries, as well as representatives of governments, the CTA President Agostinho Vuma said that the balanced development of the African nations and Russia, regarding business, involves strengthening business associations at national and transnational levels.
“To talk about business associations between Russia and Africa is really to talk about promoting intra and transnational ties that contribute to the goal of establishing and creating common development cooperation projects,” said Agostinho Vuma, CTA President. To reach other levels in economic terms, Russia must create a specific fund, because business organizations such as CTA, the Federation of Russian Chambers of Commerce, have the role of bringing companies together to explore the instruments established by governments.
“Our presence here, as CTA, is primarily aimed at internationalizing the Mozambican economy and forging closer relations with Russia and other African countries through trade and associative ties and partnerships that put companies at the forefront of the world’s economic relations as a global village that can become an economically developed planet that is pleasing to all human beings,”he added.
Mozambique as a gateway to Africa
Furthermore, Agostinho Vuma, CTA President highlighted the role that Mozambique, with its privileged geostrategic position, can play in offering Russia and Africa greater fluency in trade for development in the context of the newly created Free Trade Zone.
“It is important to note that Russia can benefit from Mozambique’s geostrategic positioning to access Africa’s continental market,” he said, noting that after the signing of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, Africa is ready to become the largest free trade area in the world: 55 countries integrated into a single market of 1.2 billion people with a combined GDP of $ 2.4 trillion USD and Mozambique is part of it.
Russia’s role in the Oil and Gas sector
Looking at the current challenges of the Mozambican economy with the emergence of the Oil and Gas sector, Russia has an important role given its experience in this area.
With the advent of exploitation of these resources in Mozambique, particularly with the recent $ 23 billion USD FID, and others yet to be announced in the near future, there are many opportunities to develop business partnerships by creating joint ventures.
As part of Mozambique’s economic diversification, there are still profitable opportunities in Mozambique and there is a portfolio of selected private projects with the African Development Bank, valued at about $ 500 million USD.
Russia is one of Mozambique’s main partners, particularly as regards technical assistance in relation to the country’s development plans during the post-independence period.
Despite a period of apparent slowdown in bilateral economic relations, we are currently witnessing the strengthening of trade ties with Russia, looking at statistics.
In 2018, for example, bilateral trade increased 25 % from 2017 to about $ 115 million USD.
In the first quarter of this year, trade doubled from $ 11.2 million USD last year to $ 24.3 million USD.
