Minister Pandor co-chairs the VII Session of the South Africa-Brazil Joint Commission

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The Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Minister Pandor, will co-chair the VII Session of the South Africa-Brazil Joint Commission (JC) on 23 April 2024 in Brasilia, Brazil, with her counterpart, Minister Mauro Vieira, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federative Republic of Brazil.

On 13 December 2003, South Africa and Brazil signed an agreement to establish a Joint Commission. A Declaration on Strategic Partnership and an Action Plan was signed in 2010.

The Joint Commission serves as a mechanism to monitor and facilitate the implementation of the Action Plan in several areas such as agriculture; defence; economic and commercial relations; environment; health; higher education and technical cooperation; justice and correctional services; minerals and energy; science, technology, and communications; sports, arts, and culture.

The Joint Commission is composed of 10 sectoral Working Groups (WG).

A Senior Officials Meeting was held on 10 April 2024 to review the work done by the working groups in preparation for the JC.

South Africa shares a common history and cultural heritage with Brazil’s over 100 million population of African descent (African Diaspora), the second largest African Diaspora in the Americas region.

Brazil will host the Sixth Region Diaspora Conference in the state of Bahia on 20-22 May 2024 as one of the preparatory meetings for the Ninth Pan African Conference that will be held in Togo in October 2024.

South Africa and Brazil as member countries of the Global South, actively advance the developmental agenda of the South through, amongst others, the UN, IBSA, BRICS, G20, WTO, and International Financial Institutions.

Brazil is currently holding the IBSA Chair, G20 Presidency and in 2025 will chair the BRICS Plus as well as COP30. On 1 December 2023, South Africa became a member of the G20 Troika, with India and Brazil and will assume the Presidency of G20 in 2025

Brazil is South Africa’s largest trading partner in Latin America and is the second largest trading partner in the Americas after the USA. South Africa is Brazil’s second largest export partner in Africa.

The resumption of LATAM Airlines’ and SAA’s direct flights between Sao Paulo and Johannesburg in 2023 has opened opportunities to scale up tourism, trade, and people-to-people relations.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Republic of South Africa: Department of International Relations and Cooperation.

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