South Africa and Tanzania would ink a bilateral agreement on Friday to provide a framework for cooperation in science and technology between the two countries, South Africa’s Department of Science and Technology (DST) said on Thursday.

Tanzania has historically low levels of investment in research and development (R&D) with only about 0,24% of its gross domestic product (GDP) being spent on R&D every year.

Comparably, South Africa invests about 1% of its GDP on R&D, and has set a target to invest 2% of the nation’s GDP in R&D.

The DST said that this provided significant opportunity for South Africa to support Tanzania in developing its science and technology system and thereby also strengthening regional integration in the sector.

Also on the agenda for the meeting that would take place in Dar es Salaam, were possible programmes by Tanzania to support South Africa’s bid to host the Square Kilometre Array.

South Africa would host a delegation of senior technical officials from Tanzania in the second quarter of 2011 to map out priority areas of cooperation, and agree on joint resources to fund the planned activities. The visit would also be used to discuss a three-year plan of action.