Moscow, Russia – Trade turnover between Russia and Africa reached $18 billion in 2022, which is one of the results of the Russia-Africa summit in Sochi, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a plenary session of the Russia-Africa forum.
“I would like to note that last year trade turnover between Russia and Africa reached $18 billion,” Putin said as quoted by TASS. “This is one of obvious results of the Russia-Africa summit in Sochi.”.
“I am confident that we all can scale up trade more massively in the foreseeable future,” he added..
Russian president further revealed that:Russia’s trade with African countries in agricultural products increased by 10 percent to $6.7 billion last year, adding it has already demonstrated record growth in January-June of this year by increasing by 60 percent.
“Russia exported 11.5 million tonnes of grain to Africa in 2022, and almost 10 million tonnes in the first six months of 2023,” Putin said.
The first Russia-Africa summit and forum was held in Russia’s Sochi in 2019, with representatives of all 54 countries of the continent, as well as eight major African integrations and organisations, participating in it. Some 92 agreements totally worth 1.004 trillion rubles was signed in Sochi.
The joint declaration adopted at the summit set the goals and targets of further development of cooperation in all areas. Moreover, a new dialogue mechanism, the Forum of Russia-Africa partnership, with a summit to be held once in three years its top body, was defined. Russian President Vladimir Putin had bilateral meetings with leaders of 16 countries on the sidelines of the forum in Sochi.
The second Russia-Africa Summit and Economic and Humanitarian Forum is being held on July 27-28 at the Expoforum venue in St. Petersburg under its traditional rubric: “For peace, security and development”. The event is being organised by the Roscongress Foundation and attracts representatives of 47 countries.