Russia hopes to widen, deepen technology cooperation with South Africa

17th October 2014

By: Keith Campbell

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

  

Font size: - +

The next two-and-a-half months could see major impetus given to wide-ranging science and technology cooperation between Russia and South Africa, both bilaterally and within the multilateral Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) group framework. Russia has identified South Africa as a country of great potential and wants to further development cooperation with this country as well as with the other Brics states.

While South Africa and Russia have agreed to science and technology cooperation in principle, Moscow hopes that it will be possible, in the near future, to develop a number of practical programmes to operationalise this cooperation. The Russians are also hoping to expand this cooperation into new areas.

This month sees the Open Innovations Forum 2014, at the Technopolis, in Moscow. The forum focuses on emerging technologies and innovations and on fostering international cooperation. This year, the partner country for the forum is China. A high-level South African science and technology delegation will attend and is scheduled to have meetings with senior officials from the Russian Ministry of Science and Technology and with various Russian scientific and technological research agencies.

It is expected that there will also be multilateral discussions with equivalent delegations from other Brics countries. Russia hopes that these talks will lead to new cooperation projects, both within the bilateral South Africa-Russia framework and within the Brics framework.

The scale of the Open Innovations Forum is indicated by various facts and figures from the 2013 event. It was attended by more than 4 500 people from 47 countries. There were more than 150 events, more than 700 speakers and it was covered by more than 900 journalists. The associated exhibition covered 24 000 m2, with 534 exhibiting companies, and was visited by 12 800 people.

Next month will see the next meeting of the South Africa-Russia Joint Intergovernmental Committee on Trade and Economic Cooperation. This body, which first met in 2002, oversees all bilateral cooperation in the realm of the economy. This includes a lot of science and technology. A major new development is expected to be the expansion of this cooperation to include geology and mining.

This would involve Russia’s State-owned geology company Rosgeologia collaborating with South African geological and mining institutes and agencies. Rosgeologia is actually a holding company which embraces 37 businesses. These specialise in exploring on land for solid minerals, hydrocarbons and water, undersea exploration of the continental shelf and deep ocean drilling, geological surveying, geotechnical surveying, geological environment monitoring, land surveying, laboratory research, research and development and stone dressing. Rosgeologia has drilled the world’s deepest borehole, the Kola Superdeep SG-3, which reached 12 262 m. The group is active across the whole of Russia as well as in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America.

Further steps to strengthen nuclear cooperation are also expected before the end of the year. This is despite the current controversy in South Africa caused by a recent Department of Energy (DoE) press release on a bilateral nuclear agreement, which implied that Russian State-owned nuclear group Rosatom would build the country’s planned new fleet of nuclear power stations, although a bidding process had not taken place. The DoE subsequently affirmed that no such contract had been awarded, that similar agreements would be signed with other countries interested in selling nuclear power plants to this country and that a bidding process would take place.

Finally, the South Africa-Russia Joint Commission for Military Technical Cooperation will meet in December. This could lead to joint defence technology development projects.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

Comments

The content you are trying to access is only available to subscribers.

If you are already a subscriber, you can Login Here.

If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.

For more information or assistance, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za.

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION