President Hage Geingob has emphasised the importance of a conducive environment characterised by peace and stability in the SADC Region, in order to facilitate a smooth flow of trade and investment.
Geingob in his opening remarks during his official visit to South Africa, upon invitation by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday expressed that Namibia and South Africa remain actively involved in steering the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation, with a core mandate of preserving regional peaceful co-existence.
“Our two countries have signed over 100 Bilateral Agreements and Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) covering a wide range of sectors. This is the highest number that Namibia has signed with any bilateral partner in the world. As good neighbours, we ought not to take pride in the number of legal instruments we sign, but by their implementation,” Geingob noted.
The two countries after the official talks also witnessed the signing of an MoU on Tourism, an area key to both countries’ economic development aspirations, for which Geingob advised a speedy and timeous implementation.
At the bilateral level, the two countries are also inseparably linked economically, socially, and symbiotically and South Africa remains Namibia’s leading trading partner in the world, leading both in terms of exports and imports.
“At the regional and continental level, as members of SADC and the African Union, it is imperative that we reinvigorate our regional integration efforts, including the AU Flagship Projects and Programme such as the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA),” he noted.
President Geingob underlined that the AfCFTA is an instrument to be used to intensify trade and investment collaboration between the two countries.
In his welcoming speech, President Ramaphosa highlighted climate as one of the most pressing issues for the SADC Region.
“Like Namibia, South Africa is a water-scarce country and is thus particularly vulnerable to climate change and its effects on food security, energy generation and many sectors. We need to work together in pursuit of solutions inclusive of climate-resilient development, which is critical to the sustainability of our continent,” he alluded.
President Geingob is expected to return to Namibia on Saturday.
Source: The Namibian Press Agency
