By Rhod Mackenzie
As Turkey intends to turn itself into a gas hub with the support of Russia, then Morocco invites Russia to join the project of creating a coal hub on its territory. In general, Africans want more business from Russia
“The volume of trade between Russia and Morocco is close to $1.5 billion. At the same time, Morocco can offer Russia the opportunity to get involved in infrastructure projects,” said the Deputy Chairman of the Moroccan-Russian Business Council Raja Shafik El-Ali, speaking at a round table in Moscow.The prospective, in his opinion, would be the creation of a coal hub, since the energy capacity of Morocco is provided by 65% of coal, 80% of which the country imports from Russia.
As part of the round table "Russia-Africa: Development of Infrastructure Projects", experts discussed the infrastructure problems of the continent. The overall need for infrastructure investment in sub-Saharan Africa was assessed by George Sebulela, founder of the African United Business Confederation. In his opinion, we are talking about $93 billion over the next ten years.
Mr. Sebulela spoke about the promising mega-projects currently being implemented on the continent.
“Firstly, there is the largest project in Tanzania - the port of Bahama, the largest port in South East Africa. China and Oman are participating in the project, $10 billion has already been invested there. The project will take 15 years to complete,” Sebulela noted, adding that a 1,500 km long railway, also costing $10 billion, is being built in Lagos (a port city in Nigeria – ed.). A Chinese company is also involved in this construction. Another project is in the Congo, where China is building a giant hydroelectric power plant with a total capacity of 40 GW and a cost of $8 billion.
“We would like similar projects from Russian companies. We have strong ties with Russia, there is a lot of talk about cooperation, but so far little has been done,” the speaker lamented.
The participants of the round table from the Russian side proposed specific solutions for enhancing Russia's participation in infrastructure investments in Africa. Valery Pyatnitsev, a member of the Board of Directors of PJSC OGK-2, made a proposal to create a joint trade bank between Russia and Africa. According to him, the growth of trade with African countries will lead to the formation of reserves from African currencies.
“If they are stored in the Central Bank, then it’s good. But, most likely, you will need a separate export-import bank. Its portfolio will contain most of the currencies of those countries with which trade is most active, ”the expert noted. He added that Russian and African natural resources could be a guarantee.
Andrey Kulakov, the founder of K-Techno, recalled that in Africa only half of the population has access to electricity and its theft is widespread. Today, eleven East African countries are creating an energy pool. By interconnecting their power grids, they will be able to regulate generation and demand in a larger market. It is also planned to create a special exchange platform for electricity trading.
Kulakov believes that Russia could share its experience in reforming the energy system.
“We have a huge energy system that unites Siberia, the Urals - completely different regions. After the reform, we were able to abandon state price regulation. We learned how to play investment projects at competitions. Created exchange mechanisms. All this helped to make the industry attractive to investors. The energy reform of African countries will allow them to make the market more transparent. After that, it will be already possible for investors to go there,” Andrey Kulakov said.
He also said that his company K-Techno wants to enter the African market.
“We have two products. These are high-voltage electricity metering systems - in fact, special devices that are used in power plants. We already have an agreement with Algeria to supply these devices there, and we want to start cooperating with other African countries where there are large power plants.”
The second prototype, which Kulakov spoke about, is fuel turbines of low power, which are created on the basis of an aircraft engine. There is no finished product yet, but it will be soon. These turbines will operate on methane and liquid fuels. In Africa, gas pipelines are not everywhere, so such a turbine may be of interest. The power of the turbines will be 18 megawatts.
“We want to supply them, first of all, to Egypt, and then to other African countries,” the businessman concluded.
The round table was held on the eve of the second Summit and the Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum, which will be held on July 27-28 in St. Petersburg.
This article originally appeared in Russian at expert.ru