“The summit opens new horizons for the congress and exhibition domain. Participants and visitors from Africa have so far only been represented at major international projects like SPIEF. The St. Petersburg International Gas Forum (held at the ExpoForum and ranked among the world’s top 3) regularly hosts Russian-African international conferences. The organizing committee of the Russian Industrialist and the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs are working to establish a Russia–Africa Industrial Forum as part of the project.

The new international MICE consortium instigated by the Russian Union of Exhibitions and Fairs already includes Egypt and South Africa. There will be other African countries, but this requires building an appropriate infrastructure. South Africa and Egypt account for almost 50% of all specialized sites of the continent. There are no more than 30 in total. The Russia–Africa Summit and further strengthening of economic, political and socio-cultural ties with Russia will help Africa take a big leap in the event domain.

The Russia–Africa summit, economic and humanitarian forum will be held in ExpoForum from July 27 to 28.