Notes following Joint Media Briefing following South Africa – Mozambique Heads of State Economic Bilateral Meeting, Presidential Guesthouse, Bryntirion Estate, Pretoria, Tuesday, 18 September 2007

Comments by Minister Mandisi Mpahlwa

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen of the media.

We have covered a lot of ground in the meeting that has just been concluded – this included a combination of progress reports on various areas of work as well as areas where we have been doing work and are now ready to sign agreements.

Beginning with tourism and environment issues: you are aware that we have been doing work in establishing transfrontier conservation parks and we have received a presentation in this meeting with a particular focus on how to prepare ourselves, not just as South Africa and Mozambique, but really as a southern African region, because there is a set of cascading transfrontier conservation areas across the countries of Southern Africa. How we prepare ourselves to ensure that we have the necessary supporting infrastructure by 2010 that will make transfrontier conservation areas strong tourist attractions by 2010. The presentation therefore addressed work that is underway to ensure that for instance, all of the landing strips in these transfrontier conservation areas are in place by 2010.

We also looked at areas of infrastructure and capacity building, including co-operation between both countries in this regard.

Perhaps finally on tourism and environment related issues, we have been negotiating around the completion of a fisheries and marine and coastal management agreement. We have come to an agreement which is now being subjected to the legal and constitutional processes in each country and we hope that this will be signed in the next meeting.

On the finance issues: we have also been negotiating an Avoidance of Double Taxation Agreement and as you will be aware, this is one of the Agreements we have signed today.

We have also reached agreement on the establishment of one-stop border posts but more immediately, the implementation of the Lubombo - Ressano Garcia Border Post. This is a process that will also involve some construction work that will take place at that border post. This is work that will be shared between South Africa and Mozambique, portions of which will be allocated to each country respectively. This work is work that will begin to be implemented – accordingly we have begun the process of calling for tenders, the construction is expected to have begun by February 2007 toward this establishment of one-stop border posts.

We reviewed progress on the implementation of the mutual assistance agreement on customs and administration and basically, it was a report of the degree of improvement in the administration that has resulted from the finalization of this agreement. Mozambique has also informed us of progress being made in the establishment of its own financial intelligence centre. This is one of the mechanisms with which to deal with the challenge of money laundering. There was a lot of co-operation between Mozambique and South Africa’s own financial intelligence centre in this regard.

On trade and industry related issues: we reviewed progress on the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding on Economic Co-operation and it is evident that we are beginning to see instances of co-operation as a direct consequence of this MoU – viz. co-operation between our standards organizations (SABS and Mozambican counterpart). We are starting to see co-operation in the area of trade negotiations and training and capacity building is this area. We are also beginning to exchange and share experiences in the area of small and medium size enterprise development. We also agreed to prepare for the next meeting a comprehensive report on the various spatial development initiatives currently underway. We also received a report from Mozambique on the Maputo Metallurgical Complex – this is feasibility work that is being done on the viability of establishing a steel plant in Mozambique. This is work that is being done collaboratively. Mintec on the South African side is the main party that has been working with the Mozambican government in this regard.

On minerals and energy related issues: the Mozambican government updated us on progress towards the assumption of control by Mozambique of the Cahora Bassa Hydro-Electric Facility. The work has basically been completed although we are now dealing with the matter of raising the necessary finance but the process of taking over the Portuguese stake in this project has been completed. We also received a progress report on the Northern Mozambique Power projects – it is an area in which we have been closely co-operating in terms of getting projects of the ground but also in terms of the arrangements in terms of Eskom’s relation to the power-generation that will take place at those facilities.

On transport and communication related issues: we discussed the rehabilitation of the Ressano-Garcia railway line which is already underway including the upgrading and the expansion of the rolling stop locomotives and wagons that is also underway. There is very strong co-operation between Spoornet and its Mozambican counterpart. We also received a report on co-operation in the area of civil aviation – there is growing air traffic between South Africa and Mozambique – there are already seven airlines that operate between the two countries.

On agricultural issues: we received a progress report on the implementation of the bilateral agreement on agriculture that showed that there is very good progress being made in a number of areas.

Finally, on immigration related issues: we reviewed the implementation of the visa abolition agreement, repatriation of undocumented Mozambicans as well as the issue of the 24-hour operation of the Lubombo - Ressano Garcia Border Post. Again, in relation to all of these immigration related issues we have achieved very significant progress. The agreements are functioning very smoothly.

So, generally, it was a meeting that registered a lot of progress across a number of fronts and this shows the deepening relations between both countries.

Questions and answers

Question: Minister Mpahlwa, in the light of developments in Zimbabwe, did the meeting discuss this at all with regard to illegal immigrants and a report today that Zimbabwe is closer to collapse than ever?

Answer: This issue did not come up in the bilateral discussions but I am not sure whether the Presidents may have reflected upon this in their own discussions.

Question: Minister Changi, could you elaborate a bit more on the Mozambican Metallurgical Complex?

Answer: (Minister Mpahlwa) This is an initiative based on a possibility we think is there. Mintek has been working quite closely with the government of Mozambique and the work that has so far been done is pre-feasibility work.

(Minister Changi) I agree with Minister Mpahlwa. This is an initiative we are looking at building in Matola. We have received a recommendation from the Heads of State to prepare a document to present at the next meeting of the Heads of State. We are looking at building this in Matola in order to build the economy.

Question:Ministers, could you talk about challenges in terms of the border issues including human trafficking? Has this issue been raised and other border security issues?

Answer: On the issue of human trafficking: I am not sure if Minister Changi has any knowledge in this regard but this is a matter we would have to specifically address.

Answer: What we are looking at working towards is really to make sure that in all border posts between both countries we can enhance the levels of efficiency of operation and we can effectively make them one-stop border posts. We are at the moment prioritizing the Lubombo-Ressano Garcia border post but work will cascade towards other border posts.

Question: Minister Mpahlwa, you spoke of undocumented Mozambicans – are there no undocumented South Africans in Mozambique or have you just ignored this matter? On the matter of civil aviation, we know that there are two big companies in Mozambique that would like to fly to South Africa but because of agreement between the state airlines of both countries, this airline is unable to do so. Are you aware of this?

Answer: I am not aware of any undocumented South Africans in Mozambique but the same principles would apply if there were. They would have to be repatriated to South Africa.

On the civil aviation issue to which you were referring: I am not particularly aware of the case you mentioned but I think we are working towards strengthening our co-operation in the area of civil aviation. One such area is an air services agreement and I think the general exposition would be towards ensuring we open up our skies and enhance the flow of traffic between the two countries.

Issued by Department of Foreign Affairs
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18 September 2007