Russia's Gazprombank and South Africa's Public Investment Corporation (PIC) signed a cooperation agreement aimed at facilitating business cooperation between the two countries, Gazprombank said in a press release.

"The objective of the Cooperation Agreement is to establish opportunities for cooperation between the two entities and, where possible, facilitate business cooperation between South Africa and the Russian Federation," Gazprombank said.

As part of the cooperation, Gazprombank and PIC will focus on several areas of mutual interest, including investment banking, capital markets and securities transactions, trade finance, asset management, private equity and leveraged and structured finance - all within South Africa and the Sub-Saharan region.

"Gazprombank has already started working with a number of projects of mutual interest to the South African and Russian companies. We hope that signing of this Cooperation Agreement provides us the opportunity to begin the discussions regarding the co-financing of these projects with the PIC. The PIC is the valuable partner for Gazprombank and our cooperation will explore new horizons for both companies," said Alan Vaksman, Deputy Chairm?n of the Management Board of Gazprombank.

"The agreement with Gazprombank complements our efforts to deliver on our developmental investment mandate. This will further assist us in delivering on the rest of Africa strategy which seeks to generate returns while simultaneously assisting the continent to realize its full potential," said Dr Daniel Matjila, the Chief Investment Officer of the PIC.

Russia's Gazprombank, founded by the Russian energy giant Gazprom in 1990, is a universal financial institution, delivering banking and investment services for corporate and private clients.

The PIC is South Africa's public asset management firm, with over R1.6 trillion (about $145 billion) assets under management. PIC's main client which contributes 90 percent of the funds it manages is the Government Employees Pension Fund.

In recent months Russia has increased its economic cooperation with other BRICS nations - Brazil, India, China and South Africa - as well as with Asia-Pacific and Latin America.

In September, for example, Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom announced that Russia and South Africa signed an intergovernmental agreement for a strategic partnership in the nuclear energy sector opening the possibility of the construction of nuclear reactors in South Africa with the use of Russian technologies.