By Paul Jouvenet, legal expert and essayist – Eurasia Business News, July 30, 2023

Photo : Addis Abeba, capital city of Ethiopia.

Russia and Ethiopia will consider the possibility of building small or large nuclear power plants on the territory of this African country, announced the Russian energy corporation Rosatom following the signing of a corresponding roadmap at the Russia-Africa summit held in Saint-Petersburg.

The document defines specific steps that the parties will take in 2023-2025 to study the possibility of building a nuclear power plant, as well as a Center for Nuclear Science and Technology in Ethiopia.

Rosatom is currently building the El Dabaa nuclear power plant in Egypt. This is the first project of the state corporation in Africa. During the summit, Rosatom signed a number of agreements on cooperation in the field of peaceful nuclear energy. According to the company’s CEO Alexei Likhachev, African countries are also interested in floating nuclear power plants.

Recently, Ethiopia has officially applied to join the BRICS group.

With 123 million inhabitants, Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Africa after Nigeria. The poverty rate was 30.8% in 2015, and Ethiopia is 175thout of 191 on the Human Development Index. Agriculture remains the socio-economic pillar of the country, based on coffee, pulses, teff, potatoes and sugar cane. It accounts for 32% of GDP, 87% of exports and 65% of employment.

Read also : How to invest in gold

The acronym BRICS, derived from the initial letters of the names of the group’s members, was created in December 2010, when South Africa joined the organization that was previously known as BRIC. The aim of the group, set up at the initiative of Russia in 2006, is to strengthen overall cooperation between Member States. China held the BRICS presidency in 2022. It has passed the baton to South Africa for the year 2023.

The BRICS countries aims at reducing their dependence on the US dollar and to mitigate US influence over their economies. Some proposals put forward by BRICS countries include using their currencies as reserve currencies, in the SDR basket, or constructing a new supranational currency based on gold and commodities. The fundamental reason for developing an SDR-like basket currency for BRICS nations is to address the US dollar hegemony and build their sphere of influence and unit of currency within that sphere.

Since 2010, the BRICS have brought together Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. All these countries are gold producers.

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© Copyright 2023 – Paul Jouvenet, legal expert and essayist.