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PM urges to fully utilize Belarus-Africa cooperation potential

MINSK, 29 September (BelTA) – The potential for cooperation with African countries is enormous; it is necessary to significantly increase exports to this market, Belarus’ Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko said at a government meeting, BelTA reports.

“Today we are holding a meeting to discuss our relations with African countries. This continent has enormous development potential and is seen by experts as a new global driver of growth. We have long been building a trust-based and mutually respectful dialogue with African countries. Direct contacts at the highest level with leaders of a number of African countries help build partnerships and deepen cooperation. At the same time, an objective assessment of the foreign trade situation suggests that the accumulated political capital has not yet been fully converted into successful trade and economic projects,” said Roman Golovchenko.

In 2022 the export of Belarusian goods to African countries slightly exceeded $200 million and now it shows signs of a downward trend. “The export peaked in the pre-Covid year of 2019 when it exceeded $400 million, but even this figure is extremely small for a continent with a population of one and a half billion. Although the export of services to African countries has more than doubled this year, it is still insignificant - about $20 million. Thus, so far our efforts to fulfill the president’s task regarding the export to Africa has made little headway. The task was formulated as follows: the export of goods and services to Africa should grow faster than the average export,” the prime minister said.

“At the same time, following this year’s meetings of the president with the leaders of Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea, tasks were set to develop not just trade, but also cooperation in manufacturing, healthcare, pharmaceutics, science and technology, education and so on. If those in charge fail to fulfill these tasks they will face severe consequences. Every effort must be made to come up with tools and schemes to reverse the negative trend in cooperation with African countries,” the head of government emphasized.

“Today we will look at how the ministries, state concerns, and structures of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs performed in the African market over the past period. And we will thrash out our next steps. I am also interested in the specifics of implementing the agreements reached at the highest level, and how we will further build cooperation with our key partners on the African continent,” Roman Golovchenko noted.

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