17 November 2009
The purpose of the Seminar is to establish, through the friendship between the CPC and the ANC, a platform for promoting mutual understanding among entrepreneurs from both countries to facilitate economic and trade cooperation. I sincerely hope that political party and government leaders of both countries will strengthen communication, enhance trust and reduce misgivings and continue working to facilitate and create a good atmosphere for bilateral business cooperation. I hope that entrepreneurs of both countries will seize the opportunity and make good use of this platform to make new acquaintances and enhance mutual understanding. There will be opportunities for entrepreneurs not only to seek business development but also to contribute to Sino-SA pragmatic cooperation and deepening of Sino-SA strategic partnership in particular.
As comrades of the ANC and friends from the business circle know, the recent years have witnessed rapid development in trade and investment volume between China and South Africa. With our joint effort, the volume and structure of bilateral trade and investment have been constantly improved. Despite the decrease of bilateral trade in the first half of this year, China has become South Africa's largest trade partner, and South Africa has become China's largest trade partner in Africa. The two sides are now working together to find solutions to problems in bilateral trade and investment. I believe that so long as the ruling parties and governments of both countries have the strong political wish to strengthen cooperation and entrepreneurs from both sides sincerely wish to enhance pragmatic cooperation, we will be able to overcome the difficulties in bilateral trade and realize further development in trade and investment and finally benefit the peoples of both countries.
This is the second time for me to attend a PBF seminar. Compared with the first one I attended in Shanghai last year, the similarity is that the political parties set up the platform to match up tourist and trading partners and the enterprises play the game. But this time, the activities are of larger scale. I was told that seminar conveners plan to organize another one next year, showing a trend to turn this into an annual event. This manifests the commitment of the ANC leadership and the new administration led by Mr. Zuma to further development China-South Africa pragmatic cooperation. We highly appreciate the effort and will work together with the ANC to continue the success of the seminars.
We are happy to see that during the preparation of the Seminar, the Progressive Business Forum (PBF) affiliated to the office of the ANC's General Treasurer and the China Economic Cooperation Centre (CECC) started their cooperation and they'll sign a cooperation agreement at the seminar. The connection of PBF and CECC as political party affiliates will pool their political and economic connections and resources and will effectively advance Sino-SA pragmatic cooperation. It is also a new testimony of the ever-closer exchanges and cooperation between the ruling parties of our two countries. It has enriched the content of political party exchanges and cooperation, and has injected new vitality to bilateral pragmatic cooperation and the development of China-South Africa strategic partnership in particular.
Issued by:
African national Congress