Submitted by freenet on Sat, 18/12/2010 - 16:41
CHANNELS:
Pretoria - Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, will meet with United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Washington today.
The aim of the meeting is to strengthen the strategic dialogue between the two countries, her department said on Monday on her arrival.
"The meetings, held under the auspices of the South Africa-United States Strategic Dialogue, are aimed at strengthening political and economic relations between the two countries, and also to enhance cooperation in accordance with the SA government's identified top five priorities and foreign policy objectives," said the department.
This will be the first meeting since the dialogue was established in April this year, with its main aim of enhancing cooperation across departments between the two governments. The Memorandum of Understanding, agreed to earlier this year, provides an official mechanism to discuss issues of common concern between both countries.
The theme of this year's strategic dialogue will be "South Africa: Open for Business" and discussions on how the US and South Africa can cooperate further to promote mutually beneficial trade and investment will take place.
Healthy co-operation would also be discussed and the ministers would be signing the Pepfar (President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief) Partnership Framework, which aims to improve the fight against HIV and Aids.
South Africa's foreign policy has focused heavily on strengthening south-south relations as developing countries continue to flex their muscle on the global stage.
Relations between SA and US are steady. The US is currently the largest portfolio investor and second largest source of foreign direct investment in SA after the UK, with total US Portfolio investment amounting to $41.0 billion as of December 2008, and total US foreign direct investment amounting to $5.7 billion. - BuaNews