South Africa: Country, Poland to Co-Operate in Agriculture

South Africa and Poland are to co-operate in a number of areas, including agriculture, following a meeting between top officials in Pretoria, Monday.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sue van der Merwe met the Polish Under-Secretary of State Witold Waszczykowski at the Union Buildings to discuss both countries' bilateral relationship and matters relating to their multilateral activities.

"Today, we discussed a number of issues including becoming involved in agricultural co-operation and other areas. To this end, we are evaluating some of the agreements in place with a view to improving on the efficiency and effectiveness thereof," Deputy Minister van der Merwe said.

Speaking to reporters after their meeting on Monday, the two leaders were pleased with the manner in which the talks went, with Ms van der Merwe saying talks were "extremely fruitful".

She explained that South Africa and Poland had deep bilateral relations with a number of agreements in place.

The two countries have strong political relationship and an impressively growing trade relationship between them, added the deputy minister.

"We also discussed high level visits including Ministerial and senior government officials visiting each others countries to deepen our relations.

"In addition to this, we also believe that we should continue these annual consultations in order to strengthen the relationship between the two countries," Ms van der Merwe explained.

Regarding multilateral activities, the two discussed the Africa-European Union (EU) Summit that will be held in Lisbon later this year.

Ms Van Der Merwe also explained that both the Polish and South African governments believed the meeting was "very important".

"You will all be aware this meeting has not taken place for seven years. We think that there are many matters to discuss between the two continents and this is a very opportune time to begin to reconvene these meetings so that the respective continents can engage on many matters of mutual importance.

"You will know that on South Africa's side, Europe is our biggest trading partner and it is very important that we begin to engage on that level between the European Union and the African Union," she said.

Mr Waszczykowski concurred that discussions covered an extensive bilateral agenda, adding that the two countries shared a number of views on the international agenda.

"In this regard, one of the major issues we addressed was the relationship between the EU and Africa.

"South Africa is one of the most frequently visited and consulted with countries in Africa because we think that our neighbouring continents must co-operate to resolve some of their challenges," he said.

he Africa-EU summit is due to take place in Portugal later this year, however some leaders had threatened not to attend if Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe would be present.

"I think it will be good to have President Mugabe to attend the summit to have frank and open discussions. We would not like to exclude anybody from discussions.

"Although the decision has not yet been taken, we would rather advocate for the attendance of President Mugabe to enable frank discussions regarding the challenges his country is experiencing," Mr Waszczykowski explained.

Source: allafrica.com