PRETORIA, February 21 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Renova Group and South Africa's Harmony Gold Mining have singed a memorandum of understanding, Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russia's nuclear agency, said Wednesday.

Russia has been looking to increase its presence on the world nuclear fuel market, but has encountered resistance, particularly from the United States, which imposed anti-dumping restrictions on Russian nuclear fuel imports in 1992.

The memorandum records the sides' interest in cooperating to develop gold and uranium deposits in South Africa.

"Cooperation between the companies includes joint uranium production in South Africa and the South African company's participation in projects in Russia, based on an asset swap," he said.

Last month Renova Group and Techsnabexport, Russia's state-run nuclear exporter, signed a cooperation agreement to set up joint ventures as part of a joint investment project to prospect and develop uranium deposits in Africa and Asia.

Techsnabexport and Russia's leading asset management company, headed by tycoon Viktor Vekselberg, plan to set up joint ventures in South Africa, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the company said in a statement.

Techsnabexport, which operates on the world market under the Tenex brand, is one of the world's largest suppliers of nuclear fuel cycle products and services, and has subsidiaries in Germany, South Korea and Japan.

Renova Group is a stakeholder and strategic investor in leading Russian stand-alone and holding companies in the metallurgical, oil, machine engineering, mining, chemical, construction, housing, utilities and financial sectors.