India, SA to develop road map to enhance strategic partnership during Ramaphosa's visit: MEA

Stepping up cooperation in the area of defence and developing a road map to enhance strategic partnership would be some of the key agendas during South African President Cyril Ramaphosa's visit to India, a top official in the Ministry of External Affairs said on Thursday.

Ramaphosa, who will be the chief guest at the Republic Day parade in the national capital on January 26, will be the second South African president to be invited to the event as the chief guest. Former South African president Nelson Mandela was the chief guest at the Republic Day parade in 1995, T S Tirumurti, Secretary (Economic Relations), said.

"During this visit, we hope to agree on a road map for taking our strategic partnership forward. Defence and security will continue to be an area of close bilateral cooperation," he told reporters.

"South African defence industries are looking at our 'Make in India' initiative with renewed interest. India and South Africa have a strong interest in maritime security in the Indian Ocean region. India has also extended training slots for South African defence personnel. We share common concerns in the areas of terrorism, FATF, cyber security," Tirumurti said.

He added that there would be one significant agreement that the two countries would be concluding during Ramaphosa's visit.

"This will be a road map for our strategic partnership and a programme of action over three years for our strategic partnership. It will be significant in the sense that it will capture all the areas where we feel we should take it forward in a time-bound manner," Tirumurti said.

The areas of focus would include defence, security, political relations, trade and investment, blue economy, tourism, science and technology, IT and agriculture, he added.

Noting that the economic relations between the two country had also been "very robust", Tirumurti said this would be Ramaphosa's first visit to India after assuming office as the country's president.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the South African president had previously met on three occasions, he added.

"The three occasions were the CHOGM (Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting) in London in April 2018, the BRICS meeting in July 2018 in Johannesburg and later at the G-20 meet in Buenos Aires," Tirumurti said.

Ramaphosa would be accompanied by the First Lady and nine senior ministers of his cabinet, in addition to senior officials and a 50-member business delegation, he said.

The South African president will be given a ceremonial welcome at the Rashtrapati Bhawan on January 25. He will then pay his respects to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat.

Modi will hold delegation-level talks with Ramaphosa and his delegation at the Hyderabad House. Their discussions are expected to cover a wide range of areas of bilateral and regional importance and global issues of mutual interest.

The prime minister will host a lunch in the honour of the visiting dignitary at the Hyderabad house.

In the afternoon of January 25, President Ramaphosa will deliver the Gandhi-Mandela Freedom Lecture organised by the Indian Council of World Affairs under the IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa) framework.

On January 26, the South African president will attend India's 70th Republic Day parade, join the at-home reception at the Rashtrapati Bhawan and depart for South Africa later in the evening.

Ramaphosa's visit is preceded by a joint working groups meeting on agriculture, trade and investment.

The visit was significant both from the point of view of bilateral strategic partnership with South Africa and in the overall context of enhanced engagement with Africa, Tirumurti said.

"In the overall context, our relations with South Africa are at an all-time high. We have, in the last four years, had an unprecedented 29 visits at the level of the president, the vice president and the prime minister to African countries.

"Our overall relations with South Africa in defence and security, economic, trade and investment relations, developing partnership and capacity building are at an all-time high," he added.

"We are confident that the state visit of the South African president will provide an opportunity to re-energise the mutually beneficial strategic partnership in a focussed manner," Tirumurti said.