Sverdlovsk Oblast Looking For Sales Markets In Africa

20.10.2009 — News

THE SVERDLOVSK OBLAST.

Representatives of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry of Ondo State (Nigeria) will take part in the International Industry Exhibition and Conference "INDUSTRYEXPO: Industry of the Urals - the Innovation Development Strategy". This will be held in Ekaterinburg 28-30 October.

The Sverdlovsk Oblast government informed RusBusinessNews that at the moment the contacts between the region and African countries predominantly have a one-off nature. In 2008 the Sverdlovsk Oblast's turnover of trade with the Republic of Nigeria amounted to 2.7 million dollars, with Tunisia - 672.8 thousand dollars. Algeria and Egypt achieves more substantial results, their trade turnover with the Sverdlovsk Oblast reached 123.89 and 62.2 million dollars respectively.

Experts point out that the potential for the expansion of the economic cooperation between the Urals and Africa may be exploited after the global financial crisis has been overcome. African countries have raw materials in demand for metallurgy. For instance, a ferroniobium production company ConRus is working in the Democratic Republic of the Congo whose Honorary Consulate was opened in Ekaterinburg in 2008. Ferroniobium will be shipped to the Urals plants of RosSpetsSplav (Russian Special Alloys Management Company).

Delegations from defence ministries of African countries traditionally come to the International Arms Exhibition in Nizhniy Tagil. Moreover, African businessmen are interested in non-military products made by Sverdlovsk Oblast companies - medical devices, consumer goods. Also African countries are considering the option of having their young specialists trained at the Urals education establishments.

Representatives of Sudan are planning to visit Ekaterinburg before the end of the year, in 2010 the delegation of the government of the Sverdlovsk Oblast is going to visit Algeria.