Sputnik News quotes Africa Center Director J. Peter Pham on the reemergence of Russian trade and power in Africa:
“While it still represents a very modest proportion of Russia’s total trade volume, Russian-African trade increased more than tenfold between 2000 and 2012. According to the African Development Bank, Russian companies invested some $20 billion in Africa last year in projects ranging from energy production and mining to infrastructure and fisheries,” the Atlantic Center’s Africa Center Director J. Peter Pham wrote in March, 2015.
Peter Pham, however, is far more anxious about the “disturbing” trend.
“[W]hile Beijing’s burgeoning engagements across Africa have received considerable attention, the Kremlin’s reemergence as a significant power in Africa has gone largely unnoticed, unwittingly giving an increasingly assertive Russia a free hand in forging multiple economic, political, and military ties,” Pham highlighted.