Vladimir Putin signed dozens of MOUs with African countries this week but can’t match China — Joe Penney

By the time the inaugural Russia-Africa Summit closed on Thursday afternoon in Sochi, Russia, president Vladimir Putin and his administration had signed dozens of memorandums of understanding (MOU) and other agreements with the African countries that attended.

The agreements include military cooperation, agricultural development, biotechnology, and oil and gas. They range from the minor, like Democratic Republic of Congo’s deal to sign data storage software, to more ambitious, like Ethiopia’s plan to build two 12,000 MW nuclear reactors.

Overall, Russia made big pledges across the two days in its effort to reestablish itself as a premier power on the continent and challenge China’s trade dominance. Russian trade with Africa has more than tripled to $18 billion in the past nine years, and Putin stated in his opening address that he wants to double that figure in the next five years.…

But it’s unclear how Russia’s commitments will measure up when put up against the China’s deep foray into Africa especially over the last two decades.

China’s last Africa summit FOCAC, held in Beijing in September 2018, made ambitious promises and followed through on them, fortifying the Asian giant’s place as Africa’s biggest trading partner at $204 billion annually.

President Xi Jinping committed to $60 billion to back development projects and said China will also exempt some poorer nations from debt, increase imports from Africa, support the building of the continental free trade area, and give scholarships to young Africans....

But Russia’s economy, with a GDP of $1.57 trillion, can’t realistically compete with a Chinese economy more than seven times that size, and it remains to be seen how many of the MOUs it signed in Sochi will pan out....

Quartz

Vladimir Putin signed dozens of MOUs with African countries this week but can’t match China
Joe Penney