Your Excellency, Minister Mauro Vieira,
Honourable co-chair of the Eighth Session of the South Africa–Brazil Joint Commission,
Excellencies,
Senior Officials,
Distinguished Delegates,
Members of the media,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is my great pleasure to welcome you, my dear friend, Mauro, and your delegation to South Africa for the Eighth Session of our Joint Commission.

We meet again only a few months after President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State Visit to Brazil in March, when we reaffirmed the strength of the friendship between our countries and gave renewed impetus to our Strategic Partnership.

Our Joint Commission last met in Brasília in April 2024. This Eighth Session gives us an opportunity to take stock of what we have achieved since then and to determine where our relationship should go next.

We welcome you here during an important year in the life of our young democracy.

South Africa is commemorating 30 years since we adopted our democratic Constitution.

This month, we also mark 70 years since the historic Women’s March of 1956, when thousands of women marched to the seat of government in Pretoria to demand freedom, dignity and equality.

These anniversaries impart two important lessons.

The first is that “freedom is acquired [through struggle], not by gift. It must be pursued constantly and responsibly.”

These are the words of the great educator and democrat – Paulo Freire, who is arguably one of Brazil’s greatest gifts to the world.

The second lesson is that the freedoms we enjoy today were neither inevitable nor achieved by South Africans acting alone.

Indeed, Brazilians from all walks of life were an integral part of our freedom story.

In fact, there is a special resonance in welcoming you here in August.

Thirty-five years ago, in August 1991, President Nelson Mandela arrived in Rio de Janeiro on his first visit to Brazil.

During that visit, Mandela criss-crossed the country, meeting political leaders, representatives of the Black movement and ordinary Brazilians to thank them for their solidarity, while appealing for continued international support until South Africa was truly free.

President Mandela and the liberation movement he led also understood Brazil’s African connection as home to the largest population of the African diaspora.

Brazil, much like South Africa, is a country that carries the scars and memory of slavery, colonialism and racial exclusion. Both our nations know what it takes to build a nation out of diverse peoples.

But our ties are not only historical. They endure well into the present.

This Joint Commission was established as the principal mechanism for managing our bilateral cooperation. It gives practical expression to the Strategic Partnership between South Africa and Brazil.

Since our Joint Commission last met, we have made important progress. We concluded a Memorandum of Cooperation between ApexBrasil and the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition. We also adopted a Tourism Cooperation Action Plan for 2026–2029.

We have also advanced cooperation in agriculture and education and continued to deepen our engagement across energy, science and technology, mining and other priority areas.

Indeed, our strong political relations are matched by growing economic ties.

Brazil is South Africa’s largest trading partner in Latin America and our second-largest partner in the Americas.

In 2025, trade between our two countries amounted to approximately USD 2 billion.

South African companies have established a presence in Brazil across pharmaceuticals, technology, mining, financial services and chemicals, while Brazilian companies are investing in South Africa’s automotive and food-manufacturing sectors.

As we often say, South Africa offers Brazilian companies a gateway into a rapidly integrating African market of more than 1.4 billion people through the African Continental Free Trade Area.

Likewise, Brazil provides South African companies with an important gateway into Latin America and the Caribbean.

The SACU–MERCOSUR Preferential Trade Agreement gives us an existing platform to build on.

This Joint Commission gives us an opportunity to explore ways to expand market access, address trade barriers, and ensure this partnership fulfils its true promise. South Africa is equally committed to achieving more balanced and diversified trade between our countries.

We have been encouraged by recent initiatives bringing our business communities closer together.

The Outward Selling Mission to Brazil and the South Africa-Brazil Business Forum demonstrate the growing appetite on both sides for stronger commercial partnerships and new investment opportunities.

We look forward to concluding the Agreement on Investment Promotion, Cooperation, Facilitation and Protection. This important instrument will further strengthen the framework for productive and mutually beneficial investment between our countries.

Excellency,

Brazil is now South Africa’s ninth largest source market for tourism. Nearly 65 000 Brazilians visited our country last year, bringing arrivals close to pre-pandemic levels. Our bilateral 90-day visa agreement and the expansion of direct flights between South Africa and São Paulo have contributed significantly to this recovery.

As two leading economies on our continents, Brazil and South Africa are bridge builders between the countries of the global North and the global South.

In multilateral fora, our countries have pursued common positions on reforming global governance to better reflect the aspirations of the majority in the international community.

We look forward to this continued collaboration as we work towards the historic election of the first woman Secretary-General of the United Nations.

The concerns of our respective regions also converge around the urgent need to reform the global financial architecture.

On our continent, as many as 750 million people, more than half of Africa’s population, live in countries that spend more on interest payments than on hospitals and classrooms.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, many countries are also saddled with debt. More than half of the population, or roughly 350 million people, live in countries that spend more on debt repayments than on health.

As founding members of the G20, Brazil and South Africa have used the forum to place these imbalances under the microscope and to advance concrete reforms.

We were proud to take the mantle from Brazil as the last of four consecutive Global South presidencies of the G20.

Our Presidency placed inequality at the centre of the global agenda, including through the proposal to establish the International Panel on Inequality, which has since gathered momentum.

We deeply appreciate Brazil’s steadfast support during our tenure at the helm, as well as your unwavering moral support during this difficult period when our participation has been unilaterally curtailed.

Our regions and our countries are home to an abundance of the minerals that the world now needs for a green future.

The demand for these minerals is likely to increase fourfold by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency.

As this demand grows, Brazil and South Africa have an important opportunity to work together to ensure that it does not reproduce old patterns of extraction in which countries of the global South supply raw materials while wealth and prosperity are generated elsewhere.

Our countries are well placed to advance a different model – one in which the minerals that power a green future also power industrialisation, skills development, technological exchange and prosperity in our own societies.

Our countries have not hesitated to use their voice and soft power to call attention to the challenges and crises bedevilling countries of the global South.

This position is not born of charity or altruism. We do so because we believe many of the challenges confronting our societies cannot be resolved by countries acting alone.

In recent times, our two nations have also been challenged to stand up to unilateralism, defend our national interests and safeguard our democracies against external dictates.

Today, as the multilateral system and global peace face strong headwinds, our joint efforts are more important than ever.

My dear friend, Mauro,

Ours is a partnership between two nations that understand that democracy and nation-building are always works in progress.

Our histories and our difficult journeys towards building united and diverse societies have taught us important lessons.

Democracy is always a work in progress.

Democratic victories are never permanent.

Democracy survives through vigilance, strong institutions and the active participation of citizens.

South Africa and Brazil know these lessons from experience.

It is in this spirit that we wish the people of Brazil well as they approach the upcoming elections. We are confident in the strength and resilience of Brazil’s democracy.

South Africa is proud to have in Brazil a dependable ally and co-creator of a just, democratic and equitable world.

Obrigado.

Thank you.

ISSUED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND COOPERATION

OR Tambo Building
460 Soutpansberg Road
Rietondale
Pretoria
0084