The Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Dr Naledi Pandor, has concluded her working visit to china.
The minister led a South African delegation of senior government officials to the forum of China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Coordinators’ Meeting, which took place from 24-25 June 2019 in Beijing.
The meeting was co-chaired by his Excellency Chen Xiaodong, Assistant Foreign Minister of China and his Excellency Oumar Demba Ba, foreign Minister of Senegal. The foreign Minister of 53 African member states were also in attendance.
The aim of the Coordinators’ meeting was to assess the outcome of the Johannesburg Summit in 2015 as well as progress made in respect of bilateral and multilateral cooperation to implement the Beijing Summit outcomes and to expedite the implementation of the follow-up actions endorsed by the Summit, namely under the auspices of the Beijing Action Plan (2019-2021).
One of the key outcomes of the FACAC Coordinators meeting was the joint commitment made by both sides to continue to actively promote multilateralism and free trade within the current context of increasing isolationist and unilateral actions by global role-players, which could undermine existing rules-based international systems.
Minister Pandor witnessed the signing of the memorandum of understanding between the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) and the national astronomical observatories (NAOC) on radio astronomy (SKA) research exchange programme (RAREP).
Following the FOCAC Coordinators’ meeting, minister Pandor will travel to Osaka, Japan to support President Cyril Ramaphosa at the G20 Summit, scheduled to take place from 27-30 June 2019.
