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 Business News | July 2007 
South Africa and Mexico Identify Similar Challenges
 BuaNews
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 |  | Both sides also agreed to do more to increase the bilateral trade and investment figures between both countries.
- Aziz Pahad |  | |
Mexico City - South Africa and Mexico have pledged to help each other in similar developmental challenges, identified by both countries during their recent bilateral talks in Mexico.
Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad and Deputy Finance Minister Jabu Moleketi visited Mexico over the weekend for bilateral discussions.
Mr Pahad met with the Mexican Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs Maria de Lourdes Aranda Bezaury while Mr Moleketi met his counterpart Under Secretary of Finance Dr Alejandro Werner.
Some of the challenges that were identified by South African and Mexican delegations include underdevelopment, poverty, unemployment, lack of skills and capacity, inadequate infrastructure to deal with a rapidly expanding city and the need for fiscal reform, the Foreign Affairs Department said in a statement Sunday.
Mr Pahad also said that South Africa and Africa had a lot to learn from the Latin American region as a whole since it had many more years of experience in the processes of development following decolonisation, the statement said.
He also called on both delegations to attempt to synergise the outcomes of the first Africa-South America Summit held in Abuja, Nigeria for the benefit and development of the peoples of both continents in general, and Mexico and South Africa in particular.
The 2008 Summit will be hosted by Venezuela.
On the bilateral political and economic relations, both sides agreed to look at ways in which to co-operate on projects relating to low cost housing, construction, mining, the environment, biotechnology, science and technology, health and energy.
"Both sides also agreed to do more to increase the bilateral trade and investment figures between both countries."
"However, Mr Pahad expressed confidence that since South Africa is the 3rd largest investor in Mexico it would only be a matter of time before the bilateral trade and investment relations reflect those of the political relations," said the department.
It added that both sides agreed to encourage, under the auspices of the relevant institutions, the exchange of trade missions to facilitate an understanding of and exposure to each other's economies.
South African and Mexican authorities also agreed to encourage the promotion of tourism in their countries.
Deputy Minister Pahad and Undersecretary Bezaury discussed issues including the comprehensive reform of the United Nations; South Africa's first six months in the UN Security Council; Nepad; the African agenda including the recently concluded Grand Debate towards a Union Government in Africa; peace, security and conflict resolution in Africa.
"The Mexican delegation expressed an interest in supporting projects through NEPAD and investigating trilateral co-operation projects between South Africa, Mexico and third countries," the department said.
Mexico was previously under Spanish rule for three centuries before achieving independence early in the 19th century.
A devaluation of the peso in late 1994 threw Mexico into economic turmoil, triggering the worst recession in over half a century. The nation continues to make an impressive recovery.
The elections held in 2000 marked the first time since the 1910 Mexican Revolution that an opposition candidate, Vicente Fox of the National Action Party (PAN), defeated the party in government, the Institutional Revolutionary Party. He was succeeded in 2006 by another PAN candidate Felipe Calderon.
Mexico has a free market economy that recently entered the trillion dollar class.
It contains a mixture of modern and outmoded industry and agriculture, increasingly dominated by the private sector.
Recent administrations have expanded competition in seaports, railroads, telecommunications, electricity generation, natural gas distribution, and airports. |
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