Presidential Guest House, Tshwane: 12 December 2006
Your Excellency, President Václav Klaus and Madame Livia Klausová,
Your Excellency, the Deputy President of South Africa, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka,
Honourable Ministers and Deputy Ministers,
Your Excellencies, Ambassadors, High Commissioners and members of the Diplomatic Corps,
Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen:
Your Excellency, my wife and I are very privileged to extend a warm South African welcome to you, your dear wife and the rest of your delegation. We are very happy that you are here with us because South Africa attaches the greatest importance to the building of close and cordial relations of friendship and mutually beneficial co-operation between our two countries and peoples.
We are indeed very grateful, Mr. President, that you found time to visit us, accompanied by important government and business leaders of the Czech people.
Your visit to our country has served further to cement the friendly relations between our two countries and, once more, confirms our mutual commitment to the strengthening of the partnership between our countries and peoples.
Our substantive and wide-ranging talks this morning and the important agreements we have signed constitute a practical expression of our mutual determination to give real meaning to that partnership.
As South Africans, we share with the people of the Czech Republic the vision and commitment to create strong and prosperous societies underpinned by a vibrant democracy, the rule of law and respect for basic human and peoples rights, not only in our two countries by everywhere else in the world.
Accordingly, Your Excellency, I am certain that we will continue to use our relative strengths to translate this common perspective into reality. I am confident that among other things, the agreements that we signed today will help us to achieve this objective. These, as you know, Your Excellency, are:
Your Excellency, our two countries have already laid a firm foundation from which to proceed to consolidate our economic relations. The trade figures indicate that South Africa constitutes the biggest trading partner of the Czech Republic in Sub-Saharan Africa, with our country accounting for nearly 40% of your total trade with the region.
One concrete example of the possibility to expand our economic relations, extending beyond trade, is that of the major investment of SABMiller in the Czech Republic, which has created a leading beer producer in Central Europe and the largest exporter of Czech beer, reaching more than 50 countries.
I trust that the interaction between the business leaders who accompanied you and our business people will give a further and significant impulse to the strengthening of our economic relations, affecting both trade and investment.
Further, Your Excellency, we should work together to encourage people-to-people contact, through cultural, scientific, educational and sports exchanges, as well as by promoting two-way tourism between our countries.
Indeed, we are honoured that the Czech Republic, well-known for her sporting prowess, allows her best and famous athletes regularly to train at our Potchefstroom University as they prepare themselves to participate in international sports events.
We are very pleased Your Excellency that we also have the possibility to draw on the store of excellent scholarship that resides within the Czech Republic, to train our own people especially in the important ar