Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation Vladimir Padalko welcomed the participants of the regular meeting of the Russia-South Africa Business Council, which took place on May 29 in the Small Hall of the Chamber on Ilyinka.
In his greeting, he supported the colleagues' proposal to hold a joint meeting of the Business Council with the participation of members of the delegation of South African entrepreneurs on the sidelines of the Russia-Africa Economic Forum (July 26-29, St. Petersburg). Vladimir Padalko also spoke about other aspects of the preparations for the Russia-Africa summit and about the participation of the Chamber delegation in the BRICS Business Forum scheduled for August in Johannesburg (South Africa).
The moderator of the meeting, Chairman of the Russia-South Africa Business Council, General Director of AZ "Ural" Pavel Yakovlev spoke about the work plans for preparing for the forum in St. Petersburg.
Various aspects of trade and economic cooperation with South Africa, taking into account the agreements reached at a meeting of the intergovernmental commission of the two countries in March 2023, were presented by Emil Kuliev, head of the African countries section of the Department for the Development of Bilateral Cooperation of the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia.
In his speech, he expressed the hope that the activation of the Russian part of the business council would bring practical results in terms of establishing interaction between the business circles of Russia and South Africa, and also that the chairman of the South African part of the business council would be appointed as soon as possible. Issues of business cooperation in the field of trade, energy and transport were considered at the meeting of the intergovernmental commission held in March, E. Kuliyev said. The intergovernmental commission also discussed the issue of launching the BRICS geological platform, the launch of which will allow the development of mining technologies.
Trade Representative of the Russian Federation in South Africa Maxim Bureev, in his video conference speech, said that "now is the time for unconventional decisions" that could change the direction of transport corridors in trade with South Africa. The trade representative also presented the features of the work of Russian business with the banking sector of South Africa and named the figure of trade with this country, which in 2022 amounted to $1 billion 326 million. The participants of the meeting agreed on the importance of personal contacts with business representatives of the Republic of South Africa.
Dmitry Piskulov, director for international projects of the Moscow Exchange, spoke about the prospects for settlements in national currencies with South Africa and the possibility of converting the rand and the ruble. He said that Russian banks are not able to open correspondent accounts with large South African banks. The possibility of opening such accounts with government support is key, he said, because political authorities, as he put it, must send a signal to grassroots structures.
In his closing remarks, Pavel Yakovlev reminded the council members of the need to send proposals to the plan of work with the South African part of the Business Council by June 15.
Press Service of the Chamber
