President Cyril Ramaphosa’s media briefing remarks on the occasion of the working visit of the President of the Republic of Malawi, Dr Lazarus Mccarthy Chakwera, 13 November 2020, Tshwane

His Excellency, President Lazarus Chakwera,
Honourable Ministers,
Members of the Media,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

 Allow me to firstly express my sincere gratitude to His Excellency President Lazarus Chakwera for gracing us with his presence here today. 

This working visit is a depiction of the importance of the relations between our two countries.

South Africa attaches great importance to maintaining warm and cordial relations with Malawi.

Built on historic foundations, our bilateral cooperation has grown, deepened and matured.

We have concluded successful deliberations with His Excellency President Chakwera, in which we reviewed our bilateral cooperation and expressed satisfaction with the ever-expanding ties between our countries. 

We noted the expiry of the instrument of cooperation, the Joint Commission for Cooperation, which is the mechanism for bilateral engagements between South Africa and Malawi and we expressed our wish to elevate the Mechanism to Ministerial level.

We noted the existence of 15 Agreements and Memoranda of Understanding between our two countries, covering a wide range of areas. 

We have emphasised the need to implement all these agreements and finalise all outstanding ones. 

We emphasised the need for these Agreements to transform lives and positively contribute to combating the challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality.

Economic cooperation between our two countries continues to show steady growth, as demonstrated by the large number of South African companies operating in Malawi.
 
 Malawi remains one of the most important trading partners for South Africa. 

We have committed both our governments to strengthen cooperation on trade and investment, agriculture, defence, culture, tourism, gender and health, among others.

We welcomed the signing of the Economic Cooperation Agreement, and further agreed to work together to identify specific areas in which South African and Malawian companies can do business. 

We also endeavoured to put more emphasis on people-to-people cooperation between our two countries given that we are one people. 

Cooperation needs to be advanced in areas such as culture, sport and recreation in an effort to bring the people of our two countries together.

We reviewed the state of peace and security in Africa, specifically Southern Africa, and noted the need for collaborative efforts in addressing threats to peace and security such as terrorism, extremism and insurgencies. 

We noted that our region is relatively peaceful and stable while there remain areas of concern. 

We committed ourselves to working together to assist sister countries in the region facing political and security challenges. 

We noted with concern the ongoing political instability in Northern Mozambique and the Eastern DRC. 

We also reiterated our common view on the need to promote regional peace and security considering that Malawi, South Africa and Tanzania are part of the UN Peacekeeping Mission in the eastern DRC though the Force Intervention Brigade.

Malawi is the incoming Chairperson of SADC while South Africa is the incoming Chairperson of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation.
 
In this regard, we will work together towards regional integration and in support of key objectives of the SADC and those of the AU.

We deliberated on the effect of the global COVID-19 pandemic on our economies. 

In this regard, we undertook to continue with regional efforts towards devising a regional economic recovery strategy.

These efforts will be linked to the promotion of intra-Africa trade through the African Continental Free Trade Area.

Following our fruitful discussions of today, it is clear to me that we have further laid a solid foundation to propel our relations to a much higher level.

I strongly believe all the necessary elements are in place to achieve this.

It remains up to us to ensure the partnership between our countries brings real and lasting benefits to our respective peoples and all the people of Southern Africa.

I thank you.

Issued by:  The Presidency 
Pretoria