Russia's Western opponents will try to hinder the participation of African countries in the second Russia-Africa summit, which is scheduled for July 2023 in St. Petersburg, Federation Council Vice-Speaker Konstantin Kosachev said on Friday.
"The second summit will be qualitatively different from the first in terms of the atmosphere around this summit. Our geopolitical competitors, primarily from the Western direction, will do everything to prevent the participation of African countries in our meeting and oppose the same summit of Africa and the United States, which is held these days with a very serious participation of African countries, " said the senator at a round table on the implementation of the strategic interests of Russia in the African continent in modern conditions.
In his opinion, Russia should be more active in building up its work in the African direction which is being done but "has not been shaped into a long-term strategy."
Kosachev mentioned that the first Russia-Africa summit that took place three years ago was a success but "its results remained largely in the political field" and were not implemented in additional projects of trade-economic, scientific-technical or humanitarian cooperation. "I am sure we will make a serious miscalculation if we do not prepare the second summit next summer in a qualitatively different way so that each of the participants could see a specific road map of our bilateral relations and see the sense of participation in the summit and reach specific agreements," the parliamentarian said.
He also stated with regret that Russia has realized later than its geopolitical rivals that Africa is interested in external partners. "The figures of trade turnover speak for themselves. The European Union, I will round up, has about $300 billion trade with Africa, China has about $150 billion, the United States has $50-60 billion. We have a growing trend, but it is still about $20 billion. The gap between our successes and the results of our geopolitical competitors is not closing," Kosachev added.
The deputy chairman of the upper house of parliament also said that the House Council has recently approved the work plan for next year, in which the African direction is one of the priorities. In this regard, he suggested dividing the FC multilateral group on relations with the countries of Asia and Africa into two groups, which would concert efforts in each area.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Federation Council
Based on materials from TASS