Pretoria - South Africa’s trillion rand nuclear build programme appears to have been discussed at the bilateral meeting between South Africa and China in Pretoria yesterday as competition intensifies among various countries for contracts to build the country’s power plants.
South Africa has taken a political decision to embark on a massive nuclear build programme to add 9 600 MegaWatts of nuclear power to the electricity grid by 2030 as it struggles to arrest the country’s electricity crisis.
This has seen some of the world’s most powerful nations including the US, Russia, France and China expressing interest and using their already established ties with South Africa to boost their chances of securing the contracts.
South Africa has already signed co-operation pacts with Russia, France, South Korea and China as it looks to start a procurement process for contracts worth far more than the controversial 1999 arms deal.
International Relations Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane was yesterday cagey about the extent of discussions related to energy, but told Independent Media there were discussions around co-operation on energy.
The bilateral meeting followed a state visit by President Jacob Zuma to Beijing in December where the two countries reaffirmed commitment to co-operate on energy and China reaffirmed its intention to bid for the nuclear deals.
“We are discussing all the infrastructure build, and energy co-operation. But the details will be outlined by our ministers of energy,” said Nkoana-Mashabane.
Russia, Brazil and China are expected to use their membership of the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (Brics) as leverage ahead of other potential vendor countries outside of Brics.
The SA and Chinese governments yesterday said they were satisfied that the establishment of a development bank of Brics was at an advanced stage.
The bank will fund infrastructure development projects of member states to reduce their reliance on Western-dominated finance institutions like the International Monetary Fund.
Nkoana-Mashabane said the South African government was in the final stages of ratifying the establishment of the bank.
“South Africa has been chosen as the regional centre for the development bank of Brics.”
The South African Cabinet would finalise the appointment of the bank’s vice-president.
Ratification of the establishment of the bank will pave the way for a contribution of $10 billion (R121bn) by the South African government and each Brics member state, for an opening budget of $50 billion for the bank when it starts lending in 2016.
China foreign minister Wang Yi said China was committed to lending its support to industrialisation projects in South Africa and Africa.
South Africa and China have strong trade relations, with two-way trade between the two countries amounting to R262 billion last year.
Pretoria News