BuaNews (Tshwane)
Luyanda Makapela
4 September 2008
Pretoria — South Africa and Italy are to advance North-South relations on Saturday when Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma meets her Italian counterpart at Lake Como.
Minister Dlamini Zuma departed for Italy on Wednesday to hold discussions with Italian Foreign Affairs Minister Franco Frattini within the context of South Africa's commitment to strengthening bilateral political and economic relations with Italy.
According to the Department of Foreign Affairs the two ministers will discuss the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sudan and Zimbabwe among other things.
Multilateral issues including the main outcomes of the European Union/South Africa Summit held in July and Economic Partnership Agreements will also be discussed.
While in Lake Como, Minister Dlamini Zuma is also scheduled to address the round table discussions at the annual Ambrosetti Forum, which will take place on Friday and Saturday.
The Ambrosetti Forum, which started in 1975 by Dr Alfredo Ambrosetti, is an informal discussion group among friends, politicians, financiers and business people from across the world who debates the key issues.
South Africa and Italy have good high level political interaction at both bilateral and multilateral forums.
According to the department, the recent bilateral meeting held between President Thabo Mbeki and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, on the fringes of the Hokkaido G8 Summit in July proved good relations existed between the two countries.
South Africa and Italy also have agreements on bilateral co-operation in many areas of mutual interest including in defence, health, air services, science and technology, safety cooperation, arts and culture and film co-production.
On bilateral economic relations, Italy ranks among South Africa's top ten trading partners and the country's (SA) exports to Italy were dominated by precious and non-ferrous metals, basic iron and steel and ferro-alloys, coal and quarried stone/granite.
South African imports from Italy consist mainly of machine tools, auto vehicles and components, industrial machinery, jewellery and telecommunications equipment.
According to figures provided by the Department of Trade and Industry, total trade between South Africa and Italy amounted to almost R26 billion in 2007.
Italy was South Africa's tenth biggest foreign market in 2007, importing goods and services to the value of over R10.3 billion, an increase from over R9.3 billion in 2006.
In 2007 Italy was South Africa's ninth biggest foreign source of imports totalling more than R15.5 billion, up from over R13.9 billion in 2006.
South African figures exclude gold and certain minerals, indicating a negative trade balance for South Africa of R5.328 billion in 2007, whereas Italian figures express total trade indicating a balance in South Africa's favour.
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