The meeting took place as part of Deputy President of the Republic of South Africa Paul Mashatile’s working visit to the Russian Federation.
Mikhail Mishustin and Deputy President of the Republic of South Africa Paul Mashatile
Deputy President of the Republic of South Africa Paul Mashatile
Russian-South African talks
Mikhail Mishustin and Deputy President of the Republic of South Africa Paul Mashatile
Mikhail Mishustin: Good afternoon, Mr Mashatile, friends,
Welcome to the Government House of the Russian Federation. I know that this is your first visit to the Russian Federation in capacity of Deputy President of South Africa, although you visited Russia several times before. I would like to welcome you personally and your delegation to Moscow and the Russian Federation.
We appreciate the trust-based and meaningful dialogue with the Republic of South Africa. President of Russia Vladimir Putin and President of South Africa Mr Cyril Ramaphosa are in constant contact both bilaterally and at international venues, primarily BRICS, of course.
We attach much importance to building up cooperation with the Republic of South Africa. It is based on the principles of comprehensive strategic partnership, mutual respect, and regard for the interests of each other.
The two governments ensure the implementation of the expanded cooperation agreements, reached by the leaders of Russia and South Africa. I am referring – we have briefly exchanged views with you – to industry, energy, agriculture, the digital economy, and, of course, humanitarian cooperation.
We suggest that the Mixed Intergovernmental Committee study new cooperation projects. Its Russian co-chair is Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Alexander Kozlov.
I know that apart from Moscow, you are planning to visit St Petersburg and take part in the St Petersburg International Economic Forum. It is highly important that the forum’s programme includes a special session on promoting business and investment cooperation between Russia and South Africa. I am confident that this will help to restore business contacts and generate new ideas and initiatives, which will strengthen our cooperation.
A few words about the humanitarian area. We are interested here too, of course, in cooperation. Primarily, in personnel training. South Africans study at leading Russian universities. They choose much demanded professions such as engineers, doctors and IT specialists. We are happy about it. We think it is very important to hold joint cultural and artistic events on a regular basis. Last year, the Days of Russian Spiritual Culture were held in South Africa for the first time. And this year we will conduct the Festival of Russian Culture.
Mister Mashatile, I am ready to discuss with you the most important issues of cooperation between Russia and South Africa.
Paul Mashatile (retranslated): Your Excellency, I want to express my gratitude for the hearty reception given to me and my delegation.
In my travel to Russia, I am accompanied by eight ministers and deputy ministers in the areas related to agriculture, energy, sports and physical training. These areas are very important for developing people to people relations. There are also some ministers engaged in industry and infrastructure development. Unfortunately, some ministers could not come to Moscow, but they will arrive to St Petersburg. I will meet them in St Petersburg then. They also intend to participate in the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, which is a very powerful platform created by Russia several years ago.
This is the first time that I will take part in the SPIEF. Naturally, we want to enhance our trade ties with the Russian Federation; this is why we came here.
We would like to discuss a whole range of issues. We would like to see more investment into our country, into solar and wind energy, and into gas sphere. I would like to see nuclear energy in our energy mix, and to make it a component of our energy mix, so that we could discuss this matter of cooperation as well.
I am delighted to see that your delegation includes many ministers in charge of the industries I have mentioned. Some of our ministers will briefly speak on some aspects of our trade cooperation and the industries in which we are interested.
We export more agricultural products. Our Minister of Agriculture is here. Our markets are open to Russian companies and enterprises. They can come and start businesses in South Africa.
We believe that South Africa serves as a gate to the African continent. As soon as you arrive in our country, you will have access to a market covering one billion people if we speak about the entire continent. We would like to invite Russian companies to South Africa. But we also want state companies that wish to work with us to enter our market.
We are particularly concerned about the fact that in the past years, Russia-South Africa trade has been in decline. We want to improve it and double Russia-South Africa trade.
These are precisely the matters we would like to discuss with our colleagues that we will meet in St Petersburg. We also seek to improve the logistics in our ports and the railway network used for cargo and passenger operations.
We have a state company called Transnet that is in charge of cargo and passenger operations. We are seeking investment in the sectors I have listed — in particular, investment in railways, locomotives, and so on. This is exactly why we have come to Russia — to discuss these matters with you and other representatives.
South Africa will host the G20 summit in November and we want to ramp up cooperation with those who will visit our country.
