The Brics Summit commitment of cooperation among member states is bearing fruits with the department of public enterprises (DPE) and a Chinese bank agreeing to enhance strategic cooperation.
“We are laying the foundation for a more sustainable path to ensure that our developmental goals as a country stay on track. This agreement is also a sign of our commitment as government to create an enabling environment for our state-owned companies (SOC).
“They are a critical lever to drive service delivery and economic opportunity to improve the lives of South Africans,” said Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan.
This week Gordhan and the vice-chairperson and president of China Development Bank (CDB), Jiong Tan, signed an agreement that will enhance cooperation and deepen existing relationship across strategic areas of mutual interest between the department and the bank.
Gordhan added the DPE and the CDB expected the agreement to provide an enabling framework through which ongoing reform of SOCs can be sustained, and to provide a push to South Africa’s economic development, industrialisation and job creation.
Tan said it was only natural that the DPE and the CDB conclude a collaboration framework agreement to enhance the relationship that the CDB already has with Transnet and Eskom.
“We view this agreement as one more step in our efforts to enhance cooperation across a range of key strategic sectors to enable further development that is underpinned by a strong relationship between our two countries.
“The CDB already has a close relationship with Transnet and Eskom, but now we also have the opportunity to work with the DPE in other areas of mutual interest, including mining and forestry,” said Tan.
In 2017, the CDB and Eskom signed a funding agreement for $1.5-billion (R27, 9 -billion) for the construction of Medupi power station, and in 2018 the power utility entered into a $2.5-billion funding agreement for the construction of Kusile power station. The bank also signed a $1.5-billion funding agree-ment with Transnet in 2015 for the purchase of locomotives.
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