Russia’s Avtotor and China’s Great Wall Motors are establishing a Joint Venture in Kaliningrad to manufacture the popular Chinese Tank 300 SUV for the Russian market. The vehicle has attracted a 7.2% share of the Russian new premium car market. Production will commence in Q2 this year.
Russian and Chinese businesses are collaborating in the biotechnology sector, an industry set to quadruple in size over the next decade and recognised as a key economic pillar by the Russian government. The Russian Agriculture Minister and a business delegation are currently in China looking at potential joint venture projects.
Azerbaijan is targeting an increase of Russian tourist visitors during 2026 and is hoping to attract upwards of 750,000 arrivals over the year. Russian tourist are becoming sought after they abandon European vacations due to the unfriendliness and opt for eastern destinations. Russians also now spend more overseas than European tourists do as the Eurozone economies enter recession and cost of living expenses increase.
The crisis in the Middle East has disrupted maritime logistics between China and Europe, with operators reconsidering Russian and Eurasian overland routes. But these too face difficulties as Russian Railways is close to full capacity and political divisions have closed off EU-Russian borders. While there are options for Russia-Asia supply chains, the Eurasian routes remain problematic for European importers. We discuss what could be done to allieviate the situation.
Russia increased both the volume and revenue from its 2025 exports of agricultural produce to the Eurasian Economic Union countries – Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan – by 23% as it looks to diversify its export mix. Sunflower oil, confectionery, flour, pork, sugar, animal feed, rapeseed, wheat, canned vegetables, vegetable and meat extracts, coffee and tea exports all increased.
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Russia has recommenced barley exports to Tunisia after recording zero exports of the commodity in 2025. Significantly higher European prices are shifting the supply chain market to Russia’s grain exporters.
The Seychelles Tourism Academy has begun holding Russian language courses in the country to better accommodate the growing numbers of Russian tourists to the islands, who are now the third-largest source of tourism to the Seychelles. Russian tourists have overtaken the Europeans in the amount of money they now spend overseas.
The Russian Sovereign Wealth Fund is prepared to offer Namibia financing options for development projects in the country, as a delegation led by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Trutnev visits Windhoek. Russian businesses are interested in Namibia’s energy, advanced technology, the mining industry, petrochemicals, financial and agricultural sectors.
Russian and Ghanaian officials have been meeting in Accra to discuss bilateral trade as well as the coming 3rd Russia-Africa summit, which is scheduled to be held in Ghana later in the year. Ghana is a primary member of the African Union and the African Continental Free Trade Agreement. Ghana-Russia trade has tripled in the past three years.
The Russian Defense Minister, Andrei Belousov, has been visiting Togo to discuss military and security cooperation. The country provides access to the volatile Sahel region, and also provides a West African Port of strategic interesst to the Russian Navy.
Russia’s Rosatom has signed an MoU with South Africa’s Nuclear Energy Corporation as regards expanding the generation capacity of its Koeberg NPP and look at developing additional NPP without the country. South Africa has the only NPP in the African continent yet is suffering from blackouts and a lack of electricity,
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