Phindile Baleni, Director-General in the Presidency and Secretary of the Cabinet, headed South Africa’s delegation at the summit of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) held in Moscow yesterday, according to the Kremlin, which said President Vladimir Putin took part in the plenary session.

The Kremlin listed Baleni among the “heads of delegation from the invited states”, alongside Turkmenistan’s State Minister Maksat Babayev.

Heads of delegation from GECF member states included Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian and Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Kremlin said. It listed Mozambique’s President Daniel Chapo among the heads of delegation of GECF observer states. The Moscow Declaration was adopted at the end of the summit, the Kremlin said.

Putin said the declaration, which energy ministers of the forum’s member countries had worked to finalise, “emphasises the objectively growing importance of gas as an affordable and environmentally friendly energy resource for the long-term sustainable growth of the global economy and industry”.

In his speech, Putin said the forum’s participants account for 70% of the world’s natural gas reserves and about 40% of global exports. He said gas consumption grew by 1.2% last year to 4.2 trillion cubic metres, and that global demand was projected to reach 5.5 trillion cubic metres a year by the middle of the century.

He said the forum countries’ contribution to global energy security applied “above all to the new centres of economic growth – the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America”.