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Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa today, Wednesday 21 October lauded the successful outcomes of his official visit to Sweden where he co-chaired together with Swedish Deputy Prime Minister the 9th Session of the SA-Sweden Binational Commission. Deputy President Ramaphosa was speaking at the conclusion of his visit to Sweden and ahead of his scheduled official engagement in Cuba from 21-26 October 2015.

The visit to Sweden is part of a three-nation visits that will see Deputy President Ramaphosa also paying official visits to Cuba and Mexico.

In his comments in Sweden upon conclusion of his official visit, Deputy President Ramaphosa said "Our visit to Sweden has been more than successful, because we were able to achieve nearly every objective that we had set for ourselves. The first thing was to renew the relationship between South Africa and Sweden at a number of levels.

''Politically we were able to reconnect with the political leadership of Sweden and confirm once again that we are friends that we have a lot that is common between the two countries and commit ourselves to continue working together for the development of our peoples.

''We were also able to express a deep sense of gratitude for the enormous support that we received from Sweden over the years of our struggle.  Sweden is one of those rare countries that continued to support us through the dark days of apartheid. They gave material, spiritual and other forms of support throughout the years when we were struggling against apartheid and finally they also gave refuge to our beloved leader Oliver Tambo when he was not well.

''We were also able to consolidate the dealings between the two countries through the Bi-national Commission that was set up nine (9) years ago. Nine years ago we decided to have this commission between the two countries and this commission has continued to meet over the nine sessions and it has set up a number of structures and committees that work on a number of issues - political issues, issues that have to do with trade and investment and now of late we also set up a committee that deals with issues such as water and energy and the environment.

''These committees were able to meet during this session and come up with really good decisions. One of the most outstanding decisions was a deep cooperation which was sealed in an agreement on water and the environment. Our minister of Water and Sanitation signed the agreement with the minister of the Climate and the Environment here.
That agreement is going lead to deep cooperation between the two countries on water resource issues. We will learn a lot from them and they will also give us a lot of assistance.

''The other agreement that was signed was on energy; we will exchange a lot of ideas on energy but for me the most outstanding agreement was Sweden agreeing to continue supporting the skills development project between the two countries of getting young people from South Africa coming to Sweden to learn at a post graduate level at the Marine University and other universities where they are going to learn technical things that they can come and utilise back home. That to us was important.

''The other areas where we reached agreement was to continue cooperating at the UN level, various multilateral organisations. This was particularly important as we are now going to the Climate Change conference in Paris later this year were we have agreed that we will work together to ensure that we do things that are going to reach an agreement which will be a practical agreement amongst all countries of the world working together with Sweden. Our visit here has been a really a good visit, we are very pleased and over joyed with the visit.

''The other important thing that crowned the success of our visit was having a Business Forum.   Business people from South Africa came and met their counterparts here in Sweden and they were able to have a workshop and a seminar and exchange views but the practical side of it all was that they were able to have two sight visits to go and see in real practical terms what Sweden has to offer. So the agreement was that we will get a lot of assistance at a business level from Sweden.

''The other important agreement was that we should find ways to address the trade imbalance between Sweden and South Africa.  Our trade with Sweden is more tilted in their favour.  We are importing more from them than we are exporting. We need to correct that and they are going to work with us to correct that and they are going to find ways of buy more things from us.

''At the end we ended up saying we look forward to the next Bi-national commission which will be held in South Africa.  During that period we would have wanted to have made great progress in all the areas that we looked at.  We are fortunate because the things we agreed upon are very practical and they have an impact on the economy, they have an impact on creating jobs; they will be able to impact very positively the lives of our people.

''So our visit to Sweden has been more than successful and we are very happy with our continued relationship with Sweden'', concluded Deputy President Ramaphosa



Issued by The Presidency