Фото: Пул первого
Ghana’s president is expected to visit Belarus in June. Today Alyaksandr Lukashenka received Foreign Minister Maksim Ryzhankou for a report. The meeting focused on the minister’s recent visits to Togo and Ghana.
“Africa is the future. You probably understand this more than anyone else in our country. Therefore, regarding your latest trip — briefly, as we will still discuss this — what we have managed to achieve in Africa and which directions with which countries we are ready to develop today. But the most important thing is to remember that we are not an empire, we are not Americans who can cover the entire continent. We need to have support points from which we will work in the countries that interest us. This is the main thing.
I often cite Oman. From the territory of Oman one can work across all of East Africa. Moreover, they have maintained good ties there from earlier times. They know how to trade, we should cooperate with them, they will invest. Especially in the current situation, when this dollar is no longer needed by anyone. They understand where this is leading. They are investing significantly and spending money,” Lukashenka said at the start of the meeting.
He added that he had already identified key partners in Africa. In the north these are Egypt and Algeria. He also hopes for cooperation with Libya.
“I think Libya will get back on its feet,” he said.
In the south Lukashenka noted his satisfaction with cooperation with Zimbabwe and said he also expects Mozambique to join such efforts.
After the report, Ryzhankou said Ghana’s president, John Dramani Mahama, is ready to visit Minsk.
“As a serious step toward building further relations, we received an official response from the president of Ghana confirming his readiness to make a visit to Belarus. There are specific dates. It will be in June,” the minister said.
He stressed that his trips to Ghana and Togo were the first visits at the ministerial level.
“I would not say that we are only taking the first steps, but in some countries we indeed are. From this perspective, the visits to Ghana and Togo were the first in the history of diplomatic relations at the level of foreign ministers,” he said.
According to Ryzhankou, until now the legal framework for relations with these countries had effectively been absent, there were no significant contracts, and trade had been sporadic. Now, however, the sides have identified “certain directions, main lines” for cooperation.
The minister explained that Belarus is interested in a deep-water port in Togo that handles about 30 million tonnes of cargo annually.
“For us it is important primarily as a transport and logistics hub, including for our trade with Central Africa,” he said.
Ryzhankou also shared other results.
“During the visit a decision was made to finance the supply to Togo of about 4,500 units of Belarusian machinery, including tractors, mounted equipment and other various units,” he said.
Agreements were also reached on supplies of meat and dairy products, and the relevant veterinary certificates were signed. There are also agreements on training specialists.
“Essentially the visit to Ghana followed the same track. There we reached agreements, found financing and already placed an order for the production in Belarus of about 3,000 units of machinery of almost the same range as for Togo.
Concrete agreements were reached on increasing supplies of powdered milk and meat. Until now deliveries of these goods were insignificant, about 200,000–300,000 dollars. We expect that after the visit supplies will increase many times over,” he said.
Ghana is also interested in sending more students to study in Belarus. Currently there are about 80.