By Jason Felix.
South African trade and investment with the UK has somewhat stagnated in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak and domestic challenges in both countries.
This is according to International Relations and Cooperation Minister Ronald Lamola, who hosted his UK counterpart, Foreign Secretary David Lammy, in Cape Town on Tuesday.
Ahead of the bilateral between Lamola and Lammy, Britain’s Prince William, Prince of Wales, met with President Cyril Ramaphosa at his official residence of Genadendal in Cape Town.
According to Lamola, the bilateral relations between South Africa and the UK can be significantly improved.
“Our trade and investment relationship has stagnated somewhat, not only because of the Covid-19 pandemic but also because of the general state of the global economy and our various domestic challenges.
“The state visit by President Ramaphosa in 2022 and the recent working visit by Deputy President Paul Mashatile to the UK aimed to provide renewed impetus to our bilateral engagements. More specifically, the deputy president’s visit was to rebuild investor confidence in South Africa and increase foreign direct investment into SA,” Lamola said.
Furthermore, Lamola said over the past number of years, the Bilateral Forum had “declined” when compared to past meetings.
“When the forum was first established in the 1990s, it met annually at the level of head of government, so our deputy president met with the prime minister of the United Kingdom, which was necessary at the time.
“The forum then evolved to annual meetings at the level of foreign ministers, who were supported by numerous other ministers and deputy ministers and the meetings were in-depth and lasted for two days to allow for substantive engagement and discussions,” he said.
Lamola also said it is South Africa’s hope to “reset” the forum and restore it to in-depth discussions on a wide range of issues.
“From our perspective, the forum must be utilised to not only discuss the current status of issues, but also identify new areas of cooperation, discuss challenges, drive engagement, and give a mandate to its working groups,” he said.
Lammy said the Labour government was committed to growth, climate leadership and trade.
“On the green transition on climate finance, on technical assistance and tech, there’s much that we can do together. I look forward to this next year, in particular, where you lead the G20.
“I and other ministers across the UK system will have the best of excuses to come back to South Africa. And with our shared ambitions, I think on growth, climate and security, we can achieve a lot for our countries. Also, I hope a lot for the region and for broader global security and strength,” he said.