Pretoria - The 14th session of the South African-Russian Joint Inter-governmental Committee on Trade and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) will be held in Pretoria on Friday.
The session, which will be chaired by International Relations and Cooperation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, and the Minister of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation, Sergey Donskoy, will review progress made in trade relations.
“The 14th ITEC session will review progress made since the last session and is expected to agree on specific plans of action to expedite implementation of existing commitments within all the sectors of ITEC,” the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) said on Wednesday.
Areas of discussion include trade, investment and banking; mineral resources; energy; agriculture, forestry and fisheries; transport; science, technology and space; water resources, and education and justice.
ITEC also includes the South Africa-Russia Business Council, which brings together private sector representatives from both countries in various sectors to discuss ways of accelerating bilateral trade and investment opportunities.
The Business Council will meet on Thursday in Pretoria and its outcomes will be included in the final ITEC outcome document.
“South Africa will continue to promote its key priorities in the ITEC discussions, which include domestic, regional and global issues such as education and skills development, especially in nuclear science, physics and mathematics; technology transfer; mineral resource beneficiation; diversification of structure of trade to high value-added products; and tourism cooperation.”
It is expected that the mainstreaming of Africa’s regional economic integration priorities and the BRICS objectives will also form part of discussions.
The ITEC Agreement was signed in 1999 by the governments of the two countries to support and enhance cooperation.
ITEC has proven to be an effective instrument in contributing directly to improved two-way trade and investment, as well as critical skills development and technology exchanges. - SAnews.gov.za
