International Relations and Cooperation Minister, Naledi Pandor, has called on the global community to collaborate in combating terrorism.

Speaking ahead of an official State Visit by Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón, Pandor said the government was concerned about the terror alert issued by the US Embassy about a possible attack in the greater Sandton area this weekend.

“Terrorism is always a big threat that the global community must collaborate on. We are very concerned about terrorism after the alert the US embassy informed us about, clearly our security organs are paying attention to this matter.

“All countries have to unite to combat terrorism. It’s exacting a terrible toll in the Sahal region and whatever we can do together, I think that we must all pull our security capacities into a united force against terrorists.”

The Minister said that she was glad that the European Union has decided to give the Southern African Development Community Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM) some support to assist with the battle in northern Mozambique.

State Visit 

Explaining the importance of today’s State Visit, Minister Pandor said the visit is very important as South Africa and Spain are good trading partners and Spanish companies have participated quite robustly in the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) programme and have supported the introduction of renewable energy in South Africa.

“We also trade substantively in automotive sector, as well as in agriculture without citrus products offering good competition to the Spanish citrus industry. So clearly we want to discuss expanding economic cooperation, as well as ensuring that we can expand the products that South Africa exports to Spain, we think there’s real opportunity.

Pandor said that the two countries are interesting in the commonalities, one is strong action in the automotive sector and second being tourism.

“South Africa is a country that relies a great deal on its tourist sector but also agriculture is very important. So out of those, we really would want to see greater progress. We are also looking at increasing collaboration in sports, in arts and culture. We will be signing some Memoranda of Undersating (MOUs) today and then of course, the trade aspect will also be part of what is agreed upon,” Pandor said.

Source: South African Government News Agency