Luanda – Russia’s minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov, returned to his country on Thursday, after a 48-hour working visit to Angola at the invitation of the Angolan minister of Foreign Affairs, Téte António.
At the 4 de Fevereiro International Airport, the Russian diplomat received farewell greetings by the Head of the Angolan mission, Téte António, also by the Russian Ambassador to Angola, Vladimir Taratov, and by the Ambassador of Angola to Russia, Augusto da Silva Cunha, among other officials.
Sergey Lavrov, who arrived in Luanda on Tuesday, was received in audience by the President of the Republic, João Lourenço, and met with his Angolan counterpart, Téte António.
In the framework of his work visit to Angola, the head of the Russian diplomacy, on Wednesday laid a wreath on the sarcophagus of the first President of Angola, Agostinho Neto.
During the visit, both countries expressed interest to boost business relations, with the main focus on the fields of manufacturing, agribusiness, fisheries, energy as well as geology and mining.
Angola and Russia plan to hold the Fourth Meeting of the Bilateral Intergovernmental Commission, to be held in Luanda from 17 to 21 April.
Angola and Russia have had privileged relations since October 8, 1976, the date on which the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation was signed in Moscow.
On 16 November 2004, the two countries signed in Luanda an agreement for the re-launch of cooperation in the economic and technical-scientific domains and, the following day, created the intergovernmental commission for economic, technical-scientific and commercial cooperation.
Currently, cooperation is most significant in the sectors of energy, geology and mining, higher education, staff training, defence and security, telecommunications and information technologies, fisheries, transport, finance and banking.
In 2019, the Head of State, João Lourenço, made his first visit to the Russian Federation and had a meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and in the same period, there were talks at the highest level between both countries delegations aiming to strengthen and widen bilateral cooperation.
Meanwhile, by the second half of 2019 trade between Angola and Russia stood at USD 26 million, which represented a drop of 40% from the previous period.
A constant factor in these relations is that the Russians sell much more than they buy from Angola. Angola´s export basket to Russia is mainly based on wood and its by-products, scrap metal and precious stones.
On the other hand, among the top ten Russian export products are goods, military services, electrical equipment, its components, books, graphic industry products, fuels, minerals, crude oil by-products and fertilizers.
Source: Angola Press News Agency
