The volume of Russian-African trade is still inferior to the turnover of China and America with Africa, but in the next five years it can double with the consistent support of exporters and importers and overcoming infrastructure constraints, Vsevolod Sviridov, an expert at the HSE Center for African Studies (a division of Russia's Higher School of Economics), told Sputnik.
"So far, the volume of Russian-African trade (about $18 billion) is inferior to Chinese, American, and European countries," he said.
However, there is a significant potential for expanding supplies across the entire product range, especially in the agricultural sector, the expert stressed.
"If we overcome infrastructure and financial constraints and consistently support exporters and importers, our trade turnover with African countries may double over the next five years," Sviridov said.
The expert also underlined to the main articles of export-import relations between Russia and three countries of North Africa (Egypt, Algeria, Morocco), the leaders of Africa in trade relations with Russia.
"The structure of trade with them is quite differentiated, including food, fertilizers, machine-building and metal products, petroleum products, coal, weapons and medicines. Russia actively imports vegetables, fruits, nuts from Egypt and Morocco – products from these countries can be found in almost any supermarket," he added.
On July 27-28, the Second Russia-Africa Summit and Economic and Humanitarian Forum will be organized in St Petersburg, which will facilitate reinforcement of the cooperation between Russia and African countries. The summit will be held under the motto "For Peace, Security and Development".
"The summit will provide an opportunity to hold important meetings and discuss numerous political and economic issues at the bilateral and regional levels," Najwa Wahiba, the Libyan presidential council's spokeswoman, told Sputnik.
Sputnik, a part of the Rossiya Segodnya media group, is an official media partner for the event.