Russia Trade with Africa: The Current State of Affairs

Abstract

Russia is strengthening its geopolitical influence. An example of this is the holding of the first Russia-Africa summit and economic forum in Sochi in October 2019. This event showed how important Africa is for Russia and how important Russia is for Africa. It was an epoch-making event that demonstrated to the world the degree of Russian-African mutual interest.With what has Russia approached this event and how will economic cooperation develop? This work is devoted to this. The article deals with the issues of mutual trade between Russia and African countries. The main African trade agents of the Russian Federation in recent years have been identified. The state of trade between Russia and African countries has been analyzed, according to which the indicators have grown significantly due to the increase in the volume of Russian exports to African countries. This, especially in the context of solving the import substitution program and developing new markets, is extremely promising, since the African market is large and Russian goods are competitive on it, which opens up new opportunities for increasing trade and cooperation.The main export and import positions have been determined. According to the study, it is necessary to revise export positions on the part of Russia, in particular, the transition from the fuel and energy direction to industrial goods, the provision of services and new technologies. Diversification of African exports is also necessary, by increasing the added value of goods, a transition to the industrialization of production and the use of high technologies.In this regard, the most promising seems to be the strengthening of cooperation between Russia and Africa in the direction of increasing the volume of trade, promoting Russian education, high technologies, services, medicine, increasing investment in the fuel and energy complex of African countries, cooperation in agriculture, fish farming, construction, water purification and other mutually beneficial directions. This will strengthen the positions of Russia and Africa as leading players in the world arena and will serve to strengthen the polycentric world order.