Niger invites Russian companies to explore and extract natural resources in the country, Niger's Mines Minister Ousmane Abarchi told Sputnik.
"We have already met with Russian companies that are interested in coming to Niger and exploring and extracting natural resources. And in this area, we are not only talking about uranium," Abarchi said.
Niger is rich in natural resources, boasting significant reserves of uranium, coal, gold, iron ore, phosphates, petroleum, salt, and gypsum, among others. The country holds some of the world's largest uranium reserves, as well as substantial oil reserves.
Earlier, Alexander Kozlov, Russian Minister of Natural Resources, said at the session of the first ministerial conference of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum in Russia's Sirius Federal Territory that Moscow is already running several projects in Africa to search for minerals and is ready to expand the geography of geological exploration across the continent.