The recent Russian visits by Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak highlight Africa's heightened interest toward cooperation with Moscow. Both Egypt and Angola are a graphic example of Soviet-African and Russian-African trade and economic relations.
Egypt became the first African country with which Russia signed an inter-governmental agreement on economic and technical cooperation nearly 50 years ago. About 100 major industrial, energy and agro-industrial facilities, including the 2,100-mWt Aswan hydropower plant, the Helwan iron and steel works and the by-product coke plant, the Nag Hammadi aluminium plant and many others, were built under that agreement.
Egypt is Russia's main trade partner in Africa and the Arab world. The bilateral trade turnover has increased more than five-fold in the last three years and is expected to top $2 billion this year.
Angola, which is suffering from the longest civil war in history, has symbolized the Kremlin's internationalist policies and its efforts to support the national liberation struggle of African nations for many years.
Thousands of Soviet construction workers, road builders, fishermen, farmers, vocational school teachers, doctors and other professionals helped to restore the Angolan economy.
The Russian-African trade turnover dwindled three-fold at the turn of the century because economic problems had forced Russia to withdraw from Africa in the early 1990s.
Both sides recently moved to reinstate pragmatic and deideologized cooperation on the Russian business community's initiative.
Russian leaders realize that a rapidly developing economy requires new markets and major foreign investment projects and have supported this initiative.
And now a few words on the results of Russian-Angolan and Russian-Egyptian talks.
In addition to such traditional cooperation spheres as trade, tourism, prospecting for hydrocarbons and other mineral deposits and their development, Russian companies are moving to overhaul Egypt's metallurgical and energy enterprises.
Hosni Mubarak has proposed the creation of a one million square meter Russian industrial zone in Egypt, which would manufacture high-tech products, such as components of Tupolev Tu-204 jetliners, Lada passenger cars, avionics, car stereos and radios, petroleum derivatives, medications, etc.
Egyptian authorities will guarantee significant tax privileges to Russian businessmen operating in this zone.
Boris Alyoshin, head of Russia's Federal Industry Agency, said the zone's concept and benefits for high-tech companies are to be finalized in the first three months of 2007.
Moreover, cooperation in the nuclear power industry is likely to expand because Russia has every chance of winning tenders for the construction of nuclear power plants in Egypt.
Angola, which has the largest oil deposits in West Africa, and which is the second largest regional oil producer after Nigeria [750,000 barrels a day], will open up its oil and gas industry to Russian companies for the first time ever.
Vagit Alekperov, chief executive officer of Russia's oil major LUKOIL, said Angola had the fastest growing oil and gas industry in Africa. He said a memorandum on cooperation allowed LUKOIL and Zarubezhneft, another Russian oil company, to launch prospecting operations between the lower reaches of the Congo River and the Kwanza River, and in the shelf sector.
Russian energy giant Gazprom primarily focuses on natural gas prospecting and production, and is ready to build a liquefied gas enterprise if Angola has significant gas deposits.
Alexander Medvedev, deputy board chairman of Gazprom, said initial investment in Angola may total $100 million, which is an impressive figure compared to today's bilateral trade turnover of $40 million.
Moscow and Luanda have scored major achievements in the oil and gas sphere and continue to expand diamond production. Russian diamond giant ALROSA owns a 32.8% stake in Angola's ore mining company Catoca, which controls 3% of the global diamond market.
Russian specialists are about to commission the first stage of the Camachia-Camajicu mining company at the Luo deposit. A large hydropower plant, now under construction, will generate electricity for nearby districts and the Catoca and Luo deposits.
ALROSA and the state-owned Empresa Nacional de Diamantes de Angola (Endiama) have recently signed a cooperation protocol on diamond deposit prospecting and development, which also envisages training of scientific and technical personnel.
The results of Russian-Egyptian and Russian-Angolan talks imply that fostering relations is better than starting from scratch, as the near future may confirm.
