The Kremlin should facilitate business ties with African countries, bypassing middlemen, according to a Russian academic
Russia should work on strengthening ties with African countries by establishing new legislation and boosting direct trade, the head of the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences said in an interview with RT.
According to Irina Abramova, trade between Russia and Africa is misbalanced, despite last year’s growth, with Russian exports four to five times higher than imports from the continent.
“The problem is we’re buying African goods almost exclusively through middlemen… Instead, we should be trading directly with Africans,” she stated. Abramova noted that Russia is the third largest global consumer of cocoa, but instead of buying it directly from Africa, it is paying up to three times more for the product by importing it from third countries.
According to the economist, African countries can provide…
