Deputy Minister Aziz Pahad Concludes Visit to Gulf Region

Tehran: Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad today, Friday 9 March 2007, concludes his two legged visit to the gulf region during which he visited Qatar and Iran.

In Iran Deputy Minister Pahad led a senior South African delegation to the 7th Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC) Ministerial Meeting from Wednesday to Thursday 7-8 March 2007. The meeting agreed that the priority areas of the IOR-ARC would be to:

1. Have a clear vision of the future of the association;
2. Secure ways and means to promote regional integration;
3. And enhance the capacity of the secretariat.

In order to enhance regional integration the meeting decided to reinforce the mechanism of the clustering approach through which a group of member states could implement specific projects based on their interests and priorities.

In this regard the association has prioritised;

1. Trade investment and finance
2. Education and Technology
3. Fisheries
4. Tourism
5. Natural disaster management
6. ICT

The meeting also identified capacity building as a priority for the association.

Indonesia reiterated its offer in respect of the Training Programme in Micro Finance and will host a workshop on micro finance within the next six months.

In addition Iran will host two workshops on information technology and standardisation.

India will also host a workshop on Entrepreneurship Development for Growth of Small, Medium and Micro enterprises.

The meeting also agreed to set up a Special Fund from which funds will be disbursed to various approved projects as grants, with the view to pushing back the frontiers of poverty and underdevelopment for the peoples of the member states.

Accordingly the Dialogue Partners (China, Japan, France, Egypt, and the International Tourist Organisation) committed themselves to supporting the implementation of priority programmes of the association.

On conclusion Deputy Minister Pahad said, "The IOR-ARC is an important initiative for trade, investment, tourism, capacity building, micro financing and the growth of small, medium and micro enterprises and urged the South African private sector and civil society to exploit the excellent potential of the association."

Deputy Minister Pahad will return to South Africa later today, 9 March 2007.

Issued by Ronnie Mamoepa at 082 990 4853

Department of Foreign Affairs
Private Bag X152
Pretoria
0001

09 March 2007