South African Minister of Electricity and Energy Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said his country supports Russian President Vladimir Putin’s initiative to create raw materials alliances that will regulate global fossil fuel markets. He made the statement in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper .
The minister said South Africa was seeking to expand its production capacity, noting that the country would “benefit from collaborating with those” who had “a similar volume of resources.”
“This is to understand how best to extract the benefits of natural resources without exporting them to other countries. So we agree with what President Putin has proposed,” Ramokgopa said, commenting on the publication’s data that the Russian Federation and South Africa control about 80% of the world’s platinum and palladium production.
On September 11, Putin suggested that the Russian government consider restrictions on the export of raw materials such as uranium, titanium and nickel from the Russian Federation .
The head of state noted that Russia is the leader in terms of reserves of strategic raw materials. In his opinion, since supplies of a number of goods to the country are limited, the Russian Federation should also “think about certain restrictions.” At the same time, the Russian leader emphasized that nothing should be done to harm oneself.
Earlier, Putin spoke about what unites Africa and Russia.