Honourable Speaker; Honourable Members; Your Excellency's Ambassadors,
High Commissioners; Representatives of International Organisations;
Distinguished guests; Ladies and gentlemen,

This year we begin the third decade of our democracy. This budget vote
recommits our department to the principle of the Freedom Charter that
"there shall be peace and friendship".

This budget vote is grounded in the call for radical economic
transformation. It emphasises strengthening economic diplomacy and
integration, thereby giving impetus to the spirit of the Freedom Charter
viz. that "the people shall share in the country's wealth."

In this regard, our Minister has ably articulated our key policy
priorities for the 2015/16 financial year.

Our shared history in the Americas and Caribbean region and struggle
against colonialism remains central to our fraternal and diplomatic
relations.

(As we celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the Bandung Conference, we
confirm that our relations with this region remain vibrant as we strive
to retain the Bandung spirit.)

The past year saw an increased focus on Latin America and the Caribbean.
We visited the region at Ministerial, Deputy Ministerial and Senior
Officials level. The visits included Cuba, Uruguay, Chile and Columbia.

These visits strengthened our relations with these countries which
culminated in the successful signing of political and economic agreements
and an agreement to establish a new mission in Columbia.

This year I will be visiting the Caribbean region to also strengthen our
political, economic and cultural ties.

In the new financial year, Cuba will continue supporting our country with
scarce skills. This includes medical and built environment professionals
amongst others.  The training of South African medical doctors in Cuba is
also continuing with much success.
Cuba continues to be a strategic ally in our multi-lateral agenda for the
reform of the United Nations and the global, financial and governance
institutions and architecture.

DIRCO is pleased that in the last financial year we were able to release
the promised funding which will assist Cuba to rebuild their economy.

Moreover, the universally lauded joint announcement by Presidents Castro
and Obama presents an opportunity that could lead to fundamental changes
in Cuba after five decades of the economic embargo. However, we cannot be
complacent.

Instead we will accelerate our support to Cuba on all fronts to ensure
that the blockade is ended in totality and that Guantanamo Bay is
returned to Cuba. Cuba deserves to regain its rightful place in the
family of nations and rebuild its economy unhindered.

It is within this spirit that we encourage South African businesses to
invest in and partner with Cuban enterprises to benefit both our
countries.

Europe remains our largest foreign direct investment source. It therefore
continues to be a priority through existing and regularized structured
bilateral consultation-fora.

Whilst we value this relationship our major challenge continues to be to
ensure that our political and economic relations and agreements with
Europe reflect a paradigm of equal partners.

Our annual consultations will continue to build on this principle, whilst
creating new opportunities from which South Africans can benefit.

We will also continue to strengthen our focus on Central and Eastern
Europe, with a focus on Africa for trade and investments, skills
development and technical cooperation.

We are engaging with the Europeans to form sustainable partnerships for
development into the rest of Africa. It is intended that it results in
the establishment of joint projects for Infrastructure development and
the sharing of technical skills that can help upscale delivery.

Last year South Africa launched Operation Phakisa, which focuses on
developing our oceans' economy. Through our engagement with prominent
seafaring nations, we would be able to tap into their considerable
expertise to unlock opportunities in shipping, fisheries, aquaculture,
mining and energy.

None of our objectives will be successful if our administrative
structure, systems, staffing and skills is not aligned with our strategy.

Therefore in this financial year we have begun to implement our new
organizational structure in line with our strategy.

Building on the legacy of revolutionary diplomacy inspired by amongst
others the late OR Tambo, Johnny Makhatini, Dulcie September and Ruth
Mompati, our diplomatic academy continues to train our diplomats in
political diplomacy, cultural diplomacy and conflict resolution.

Furthermore, to ensure that our strategy of regional integration,
beneficiation and building an inclusive economy on our continent is
successful, our diplomats continue to be retooled and re-schooled in
economic diplomacy.
As part of our commitment to the empowerment of women we have recently
trained a reservoir of women in the field of conflict resolution. We are
ready to deploy them in the next financial year to conflict areas across
our continent.

We have begun a major systems upgrade in our ICT (Information and
Communication Technology).  This year we will continue with our
technology refresh process by upgrading of all our hardware and software.

We remain focused on addressing all our governance challenges within the
department as well as the African Renaissance Fund (ARF). We will
continue to implement our audit plan.

We have also put in place policies, systems and staffing for the
operationalization of the SADPA, including a secretariat. The only
outstanding matter is the legislation that needs to be processed in
Parliament. We are hopeful that it will happen this year.

Since our budget cuts, we have put in place numerous cost containment
measures to ensure that we continue to implement our mandate. However,
these measures are unsustainable in the medium to long term, given the
unique environment that we operate within. This includes the fluid market
fluctuations and its impact on the exchange rate.

Our financial architecture does not make provision for a reserve fund,
whilst we need to consistently respond to unplanned events such as
international humanitarian disasters.

We are also tasked with a number of unfunded mandate projects.

We have also not been able to effectively fulfill our newer mandates such
as economic diplomacy. For example, if our strategy of growing markets
and ensuring regional integration is to be successful we need the
resources to develop economic intelligence capacity.

In conclusion, with the changing global trends, it is important for South
Africa to diversify its relations, particularly with other emerging
economies in order to open up new ways of finding sustainable solutions
to global challenges.

I thank you