Rais of Tatarstan meets First Vice-President of Zimbabwe Constantino Chiwenga

On 21 February in the Kazan Kremlin the Rais (Head) of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov had a meeting with the First Vice-President of Zimbabwe Constantino Chiwenga, who arrived to Russia by the invitation from the administration of the country to take part in the events of the Games of the Future.

Speaking at the meeting, the Rais of the republic emphasized that Africa is a unique mainland by its natural riches and potential. “The role of Africa in the system of world economic and international relations continues to grow. Lately Africa demonstrates impressive rates of economic growth,” he said.

Rustam Minnikhanov stressed that Africa is an important foreign political and economic partner for Russia, interaction with which demands more active development in all spheres.

“Zimbabwe is a reliable ally of Russia in Africa with which we have established strong, reliable and friendly relations,” he said and added that according to the results of nine months last year the trade turnover between the countries made 138m US dollars.

Rustam Minnikhanov also stated big opportunities for development of cooperation in such spheres as energetics, machine-building, medicine, IT and agribusiness.

In his turn, the First Vice-President of Zimbabwe congratulated Rustam Minnikhanov with hosting such an important innovative event in Kazan. “I would like to express brotherly gratitude on behalf of the President of our country for your warm hospitality. He passed you his greetings. We were flying here, thinking that our countries are united by decades of cooperation. We should strengthen our friendship taking into consideration economic interests and economic diplomacy,” he said.

Constantino Chiwenga emphasized that Zimbabwe is totally open for doing business with Russia and for development of new kinds of cooperation. “There are good opportunities for developing interaction in agribusiness as it is one of the backbones of our economy. We are interested in experience of Tatarstan, in particular your development in irrigation systems,” he added.

The First Vice-President of Zimbabwe also mentioned the experience of cooperation in education, having informed that students from Zimbabwe study at Russian universities, including 9 students at those in Kazan.