Johannesburg — US SECRETARY of State Hillary Clinton's visit to SA has dispelled negative perceptions that Washington wants to downgrade its relations with Pretoria.

The agreement -- with International Relations Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane -- "to elevate" co-operation between the two nations by setting up a business council to improve trade relations was proof of this.

Relations between the US and SA lost their sparkle during former president Thabo Mbeki 's presidency, partly as a result of his reluctance to put pressure on President Robert Mugabe over the deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe and because SA was seen to be fading as a beacon for human rights.

Clinton and Nkoana-Mashabane planned to co-lead bilateral relations and undertook to pay particular attention to supporting access for African women entrepreneurs to the US market via the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), despite the global economic crisis.

Nkoana-Mashabane noted that big business had taken advantage of Agoa and SA had a trade surplus with the US. However, she wanted to see the two nations striving to support small business to successfully find trading partners in the US and also to expose their products there.

The US has become one of SA's main trading partners, with trade worth a 9,1bn in 2007. (Britain used to be SA's main trading partner.) Figures also show that this may be a growing trend throughout African countries that benefit from Agoa. SA accounts for a mere 0,46% of the US's total trade. US exports to SA reached 5,5bn in 2007 compared with 4,46bn in 2006. The balance is still in SA's favour to the tune of almost 4bn. The commercial section of the US embassy in Pretoria has estimated that 98,1% of SA's exports to the US are now duty-free.

Clinton also undertook to have Agoa-listed products reviewed, saying there was scope to increase the number of products from this continent exported duty free.

She paid a courtesy visit to President Jacob Zuma in Durban on Saturday, and left him feeling optimistic that the relationship between the two countries would be taken to a higher level. They are reported to have discussed Sudan, Somalia and Zimbabwe -- countries where SA is being lobbied to play a leading role as a peace facilitator .

Clinton praised SA's efforts to reduce poverty, contrasting them with declining living conditions in Zimbabwe. "There are 3-million Zimbabwean refugees living in SA. The difference is that you are free and you are working together. It is tragic that your neighbours do not have the same freedoms.

"It is the responsibility of a leadership to do what it should to take care of its own people. I know President Zuma is working hard, as did President Mbeki , to change the attitude of the Zimbabwean leadership," she said.

Clinton's stand on Zimbabwe was that the US would not abandon targeted sanctions against the government there until it was convinced that Mugabe and his Zanu (PF) party respect and are implementing all the terms of the global agreement that led to the establishment of the unity government with the Movement for Democratic Change.

This insistence revealed the talks between the two countries did not shy away from difficult matters.

The two most powerful political women in diplomatic circles concede that their discussions were not all a bed of roses.

Nkoana-Mashabane, for example, stuck to SA's guns by calling on the US to use its power to increase pressure for the establishment of a Palestinian state, saying that, for decades, the women and children of Palestine had "borne the brunt of ruthless Israeli forces".

But Clinton was critical of the African continent in general for failing to remove colonial hangovers that thwart trade links between individual countries and within Africa's five economic regions.

Clinton used the platform created by her South African visit to call on the Southern African Development Community to lead by example and tear down the rules and regulations that are blocking trade and stunting cross-border entrepreneurship.

"The US is a market of 300-million people while this continent has the potential to build an even bigger market of 800-million people."

Clinton was to continue her trip with stopovers in Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Liberia and Cape Verde.