Page 5 - AfrElec Week 29

AfrElec COMMENTARY AfrElec
A total of 39 of Africa’s 54 governments have signed up to BRI, including the economic giants South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt.
Africa forms part of Beijing’s so-called Mar- itime BRI, which aims to pave a new trade cor- ridor from China through Asia, Africa, Europe and on to Latin America. A second land-based BRI route crosses Central Asia towards Europe.
Russia
Russia had taken note of China’s progress, and it also promoting its own co-operation forum with Africa and pursuing the same strategy of investing in key infrastructure and an emphasis on partnership and multilateralism.
e Russian city of Sochi will host the rst Russia-Africa forum in the autumn, and Mos- cow has said that at least 35 African leaders will attend.
Moscow has been busy cultivating African governments, o ering co-operation in energy and infrastructure and well as security.
Last week Moscow hosted African business leaders, where Russian Foreign Minster Sergei Lavrov said: “there is probably a good reason to pay attention to the experience of China, which provides its enterprises with state guarantees and subsidies, thus ensuring the ability of companies to work on a systemic and long-term basis.”
Cote d’Ivoire Foreign Minister Marcel Amon-Tanoh said in Moscow that Russia aimed “to bring relations with Africa to a qualitatively di erent level.”
Russia is lending $10bn to Egypt to build a new generation of Russian-designed reactors. Moscow has also signed nuclear research deals with Rwanda and Zambia.
Trade with Africa reached $17.4bn in 2017, a 26% rise, with arms being a major component
but also competitively priced industrial technology.
Moscow also sees Africa as an area where it can combat terrorist groups as ISIS, Al-Qaeda and Boko Haram without Western involvement, given that co-operation with Europe and the US in security matters has ground to a halt.
With Russia experiencing Western sanctions, Moscow is looking to forge new economic and trading ties in Africa, alongside India, China and the Middle East, in order to create new trading opportunities.
US
Africa is being courted by these new sources of economic and political power at a time when US engagement with Africa is decreasing.
Washington recently hailed its involvement in such economic projects at the launch of the LNG industry in Mozambique, but US o cials said at June’s US-Africa Business Summit that US exports to the continent had fallen by 32% since 2014.
e approach of China and now its student Russia to Africa is multi-faceted and sophisti- cated, with projects ranging from Kenya’s new Standard Gauge Railway to new hydro projects in Zambia and Nigeria, and power generation in Cote d’Ivoire.
Western criticism of China’s strategy focuses on its lack of transparency and the concept of debt-trap diplomacy, where countries rapidly build up infrastructure debts that expose them to Chinese political pressure.
China has dismissed these claims, with its rhetoric focusing on win-win development and multilateralism, arguing that it is Western meth- ods that drive up debt levels and hinder eco- nomic development and poverty reduction.™
With Russia experiencing Western sanctions, Moscow is looking to forge new economic and trading ties in Africa.
Week 29 24•July•2019 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m
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