The ministerial meeting allowed Moscow and African stakeholders to create a framework for exchanges and a series of projects that will facilitate exchanges between Russia and Africa, as well as between different African countries, Coordinating Minister to the CAR Presidency Pascal Bida Koyagbele commented to Sputnik Africa on the results of the first Ministerial Conference of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum held in Sochi on November 9-10.
"These exchanges will make a real contribution to Africa's economic and financial development, and will also create a bridge between Russia and Africa and Russia's other partners," the speaker emphasized.
According to Koyagbele, the event represents "a real opportunity" for Africa and the Central African Republic itself.
The event contributes to bypassing the constraints imposed on African nations by other systems that are not designed to enable Africa to flourish, the coordinating minister continued.
"As you know, today, if you send money from the Central African Republic to another country using the traditional system, it takes one to two months to transfer the money," he noted.
On the other hand, the system offered by Moscow facilitates trade between Africa and Russia, the Central African Republic and Russia, but also with the BRICS, according to the expert.
"It also opens the door to the BRICS, the BRICS member countries, with whom we intend to develop trade. So it's really two bridges that have been built between Africa and Russia, between Russia and the BRICS. Just imagine what that means for us, and what an opportunity it represents," he added.
Meanwhile, the "diktat" of the US dollar-based payment system hinders the economic prosperity of African countries, a CAR official argued.
"We do not control, I would say, even the value of the dollar; we do not control this currency that evolves and fluctuates according to interests that are alien to our economic actors and our economic interests," Koyagbele pointed out.
There are a huge number of restrictions and constraints that prevent African countries from developing, the speaker continued.
However, an independent payment system advocated by Russia, aimed at reducing the dollar's share of international trade, offers African nations the opportunity to trade freely, the speaker pointed out.
"Like Russia, BRICS and all the countries in Africa, we are aspiring to a new world in which Africa will be one of the stakeholders and which will be based on a new currency, a new monetary system and a new dynamic of financial, economic and monetary development," Koyagbele concluded.