Rustam Minnikhanov meets Minister of External Relations of Republic of Angola António Tete

On 27 July on the sidelines of the Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum, the Rais (Head) of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov had a meeting with the Minister of External Relations of Republic of Angola António Tete.

Welcoming his guest, Rustam Minnikhanov said that he is happy to meet in person during such an important event as the second summit of Russia-Africa.

“For Russia, Africa is an important foreign political and economic partner, interaction with which needs to develop more actively in all spheres. We highly appreciate the possibility of establishing cooperation of Tatarstan and Angola within friendly Russia-Angola relations,” he said.

Having stated that relations of Russia and African countries have always been warm and developed constructively, the Rais of Tatarstan reminded that in August 2019 the President of Angola João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço took part in the first summit of Russia-Africa in Sochi.  

“At its level Tatarstan is ready to facilitate strengthening of Russia-Angola relations. Cooperation of our republic with your country is not substantial yet. At different times we procured heavy trucks produced in Tatarstan to Angola. Your country is the largest oil producer in Africa after Nigeria We could consider options for cooperation in this sphere,” Rustam Minnikhanov said.

In the whole there is a great potential for developing relations with Angola companies is such spheres as oil refinery and petrochemical industry, power engineering, machine-building, car-building and their components manufacture, IT and other high-tech spheres, medicine and pharmaceuticals, agribusiness and so on, he said.

The Rais of Tatarstan also statesd that Russia has many interesting industrial centers and large industrially developed regions which are ready for cooperation and told in brief about the international economic forum “Russia-Islamic world” and invited to take part in it next year.

In his turn António Tete said that he was interested in studying the industrial potential of Tatarstan as one of regions of Russia. He said that there is an interest to cooperation in such spheres as carbohydrate raw material prospecting and production moreover as Tatarstan has a serious experience in this sphere. He said that today Angola is one of the largest countries in Africa in oil production; however the most amount of it goes for export. “We are interested in your experience in oil processing. Now we have opened several refineries which is beneficial for us. We want to increase oil production and its refinery efficiency,” the Minister said.

Another sphere which the Minister pointed at is the development of agriculture and cooperation in agribusiness. He said that the food safety and production of food products is the priority for African countries, including Angola. He said today there is a need to train specialists and increase the number of students in technical, engineering  and agricultural spheres.

Rustam Minnikhanov confirmed that Tatarstan really has huge experience in oil production and refining as well as the big number of universities training foreign students.

In conclusion of the meeting Rustam Minnikhanov said:” We have many points for cooperation for the benefit of both countries.”