• An oil refinery project with Iran
• Trade of more than 800 million in 2022
• The nuclear power plant project is taking shape
Timides, in May 2023, meetings between the Burkinabè parties, on the one hand, and the Iranian parties, on the other hand, strengthened to finally lead to a meeting of the Iran-Burkina Faso Joint Economic Commission. At the beginning of October 2023, in Ouagadougou, a memorandum of understanding and 8 cooperation documents were exchanged between the two parties on work and social support, technical and professional training, employment and entrepreneurship development, vocational, scientific and technical education and training in the fields of pharmaceuticals, energy and mining, environment and natural resources, science, research and technology, urban development and construction.
During the meeting, Iranian Minister of Labor, Cooperatives and Social Welfare Seyed Sowlat Mortazavi hoped that the exchange of these cooperation documents would lead to ever greater development of cooperation between the two countries in various economic, political and social fields.
Regarding the results of the first Iran-Burkina Faso Joint Economic Cooperation Commission, he said: “We will see a considerable increase in exports of pharmaceutical products and technical and engineering services to this African country.” According to INSD statistics, in 2022, the customs value of medicines imported by Burkina via Iran amounted to 105,000 FCFA, compared to more than 300,000 FCFA in pharmaceutical preparations and articles.
The refinery project announced
Another announcement, made by Iran, also lays the foundations for a new relationship. “The government of Iran will build an oil refinery in Burkina Faso,” Oil Minister Javad Owji told the Iranian news agency “Mehr” on the sidelines of his meeting in Tehran with the Minister of Affairs. foreigners from Burkina Faso, Olivia Rouamba, on an official visit. Referring to Iran’s great capabilities in the field of energy, Minister Owji specified that it had been decided that with the collaboration between engineers and specialists from the two countries, a refinery would be built in Burkina Faso, with the intention of collaborating with the African country also, for the export of petroleum products. The oil refinery is an industrial facility in which crude oil is transformed into finished products, notably fuel.
While waiting for these agreements to materialize, L’Economiste du Faso looks back at the main products traded between these two countries. Burkina imported more than 112 million FCFA, just for the first quarter of 2023. At the same period, in 2022, the customs value of goods imported via Iran was 1.66 million FCFA. And for the whole of 2022, the bill spent by Burkina Faso on Iranian products was 877.32 million, according to the INSD.
Among these products, the lot “petroleum oils or bituminous minerals other than crude oils” tops the list of items entering Burkina, due to its volume and value. In 2022, Burkina imported 812,260,803 FCFA. Next come dairy products such as “milk and cream, concentrates or containing added sugar or other sweeteners” and furniture.
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Burkina/Russia cooperation
The nuclear power plant project is taking shape
LRelations between the authorities of Burkina Faso and those of Russia have quickly warmed up. “We need electricity production. We would like to build a small nuclear power plant in our country. We occupy a strategic position in the center of the West African region. A region which generally experiences an energy deficit. I think that if Russia can gain a foothold in this area, it will be able to generate energy for the entire region,” declared Captain IB during his stay in Russia in July 2023.
We thought this point had been sidelined, as recent meetings between members of the Russian and Burkinabe governments focused on military cooperation. But now the nuclear power plant construction project is back on the agenda. According to the Burkina Faso Information Agency, during the Russian Energy Week, from October 11 to 13, a memorandum of understanding for cooperation in the field of the use of atomic energy for commercial purposes peaceful agreements was signed between the two parties.
The agreement was initialed by the Minister of Energy, Mines and Quarries of Burkina, Simon Pierre Boussim, and the Director General of the Russian National Atomic Energy Corporation “Rosatom”, Nikolay N. Spasskiy. This signature will be done “with the objective of developing nuclear power plants in Burkina Faso and seeing to what extent we can use this energy peacefully, in order to meet the needs of the Burkinabe population, particularly in terms of industry, medicine, agriculture, security, etc. », affirmed the Burkinabè minister, at the microphone of Suptnik.
The article Cooperation: new axes are emerging appeared first on Journal L’Economiste du Faso.
