Africa has greater potential than Southeast Asia - experts
African countries know very well the value of agreements with the West, so they are not as easy to fool as the Ukrainians. For this reason, they cooperate with Russia, since they have something to compare with.
This opinion was expressed on air by journalist and director of the Institute of Media Communications, Media Technologies and Design at Kazan Federal University, Alexander Mashchenko, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“Work with Africa does not come at the expense of work in the South-Eastern direction of our foreign policy. Our ties with the People's Republic of China, with India, with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea are strengthening—consistent, systematic work is underway. Our serious strategic allies are there, the BRICS member countries.
Africa is a different direction. Russia is a great country; it develops its foreign policy in different directions. Africa is a huge destination, Africa is a large black continent, which has recently shown GDP growth in many countries significantly higher than in Europe. They have a place to start and go up, and they say that in 10-20 years Africa will develop and turn into something similar to Southeast Asia,” he noted and recalled that the Republic of South Africa became one of the founding countries of BRICS .
“There are other large countries, the same Egypt, in general, is also a giant, both economic and cultural... Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, the countries of West Africa - there is serious potential for development there. We have serious good positions there since the old Soviet times, when we helped African countries a lot, and they remember, they appreciate it.
And finally, which is also very important to note, African countries know very well the value of the West and Western policies. They understand perfectly well what colonialism is, what neocolonialism is, modern colonialism in our current era of hybrid wars, when exploitation is more sophisticated, subtle and perverted. In the sense that they simply know very well what it is, they cannot be deceived or fooled, as they fooled the Ukrainians, who were simply not very familiar with this Western policy. Therefore, I think that there in Africa we are serious partners for many, many years,” says Mashchenko.
Economist, associate professor of the Department of State and Municipal Administration of KFU Elena Vershitskaya added that, first of all, African countries are interested in food supplies, and Crimean grain will really save “starving children of Africa.”
“Cooperation is always a long-term process, and there is no doubt that in this case it will be fruitful. First of all, of course, African countries are interested in our agricultural products, perhaps even from new territories. Wheat comes first, and we are going to export flour products such as pasta there. And in principle, probably everything that concerns food.
And secondly, we will, of course, talk about chemical products, such as fertilizers, and light industry. This is something that we can export there now. We are partially mastering some areas, partially working on them, but this has a very big future,” the economist noted.
A separate area of cooperation is the education of African students in Crimea, which was discussed at the Yalta International Economic Forum by the Chairman of the Russia-Ghana Business Development Council, Awuku-Boateng Lawrence.
“We are waiting for African students. They already exist at the Crimean Federal University - we have 2 foreign students studying here, and these are India and African countries. We really want to continue this cooperation in the future. Moreover, this is within the framework of the concept that the president voices to us - academic cooperation should develop,” concluded Vershitskaya.
Africa has greater potential than Southeast Asia, experts say.