No Strings Attached: Russia Needs to Promote Investment in Africa, But Not Like EU, Valdai Says

By the next Russia-Africa summit, Russia should create favorable conditions for investment in the countries of the continent, while African states should not expect help from Moscow according to the European burdensome model, said the authors of the report of the Valdai Discussion Club, timed to coincide with the second Russian-African conference in Tanzania.

"African countries should not expect Russia to provide more European-style assistance such as loans, transfers, or grants. All these allocations do is freeze the recipient’s state institutions in their dependency and weakness and create a lasting debt burden. Russia chooses a different path in its efforts to assist Africa," the report read.

For instance, Russia's move to offer transport subsidies to exporters has led to African customers paying less for their goods compared to those from France and the United States, the document added.

Therefore, as the report's authors noted, Russia could align its support measures with political priorities and disseminate information about them.

In general, experts indicated that the priority task before the third Russian-Africa summit will be to promote Russian investment in Africa by creating favorable conditions.

“Russia’s annual trade surplus with Africa exceeds $20 billion, which means that Russia could use at least 10% of this amount to launch new investment projects, including to further expand its exports,” the document noted.

Another important factor for stimulating economic relations between Russia and the countries of the continent should be the transfer of knowledge and technology, experts said.

“Technology transfers and knowledge sharing must be high on the agenda, since these processes go hand in hand with efforts to expand trade and investment cooperation and are instrumental in terms of exporting technological sovereignty,” the report said, noting that all Russian investments in the development of human potential in African countries “must be treated as strategic investment.”

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Overall, according to Valdai analysts, cooperation between Russia and African countries will reach a qualitatively new level as their influence in world politics and economics grows. In this regard, the demographic potential of the African region will play an important role.

“Russia will also rely on the South and the East in terms of its demographics and development by focusing on new markets, infrastructure development and exports,” the report states. “Africa is expected to account for a larger portion of Russian exports. An increase in migration flows from Africa to Russia seems imminent too, which means that the parties must already act to make sure that integration of new naturalized Russians proceeds in an orderly and balanced manner.”

Thus, experts call today to make efforts to strengthen Russia’s authority in Africa and to work towards a common vision of the future, “in which economic freedoms and trade globalization do not limit or infringe upon the diversity of values and political and civilizational systems, which is even more important.”

“Russia and Africa need each other to be strong, stable, and independent,” the report’s authors summarized. “This forms the very foundation of our cooperation in the 21st century.”

The authors of this report were a team of specialists from the National Research University Higher School of Economics in the field of African studies and economics. The report is timed to coincide with the second Russian-African conference of the Valdai Club on the topic "Russia - Africa: a strategy for cooperation in a multipolar world," which will be held on July 24 in Tanzania.