Special economic zones of Africa: a promising direction for Russian business

Abstract

One of the essential objectives of Russian export promotion is to search for new partners and channels to cooperate with them. Th e African countries may be considered as the promising foreign trade partners of Russia but still Russia’s trade turnover with these states is relatively low. However, cooperation with the African countries is signifi cantly restrained by the extremely limited Russian business presence on the continent. One of the ways to solve this problem might be special economic zones (SEZs) located in diff erent regions of Africa. In this regard, the article considers the most promising special economic zones of the African continent in terms of expansion of Russia’s exports to Africa – the SEZs of Gabon, Togo, Mauritius and Djibouti. Th ese zones off er favorable conditions for residents’ business activities and could become regional «outposts» for increasing Russian exports to the African countries.