{"id":16459,"date":"2012-02-14T14:21:09","date_gmt":"2012-02-14T12:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/?p=16459"},"modified":"2012-02-14T14:21:09","modified_gmt":"2012-02-14T12:21:09","slug":"uk-foreign-minister-south-africa-5247","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/uk-foreign-minister-south-africa-5247\/","title":{"rendered":"UK foreign minister in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>UK foreign minister in South Africa.\u00a0British Foreign Secretary William Hague is in South Africa on official state business.<\/h2>\n

William Hague met his South African counterpart, Minister of International Relations and Co-operation, Maite Nkoana-Mashabne on Monday.<\/p>\n

The pair met in Cape Town and discussed a wide range of bilateral issue with reference to South Africa\u2019s relations with the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese include progress within the context of the Bilateral Forum between South Africa and the United Kingdom as well as the South Africa-United Kingdom Strategy adopted at the last meeting of the Bilateral Forum in London in June 2011,\u201d said Mashabne in a statement.<\/p>\n

Mashabne added that the strategy is focused around three core aspects, which include: sustainability, security and governance and civil society.<\/p>\n

South Africa traditionally has always had strong economic and diplomatic ties with the United Kingdom. According to statistics, trade between the two countries have increased by 77% in past decade alone.<\/p>\n

However, Mashabne added that this positive increase was accompanied by a sharp downturn due to the global financial crisis, resulting in a downfall of 37%.<\/p>\n

Minister Mashabne also noted that trade has increased by over 10% in 2011, which indicates a positive sign in economic relations between the two countries, which South Africa seeks to improve.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the principal focus points of our meeting is to further expand economic ties. The doubling of trade by 2015 has been set as a target at the last meeting of the Bilateral Forum and remains an important objective within the context of the Strategy,\u201d said Mashabne.<\/p>\n

Secretary Hague is also set to discuss diplomatic issues with South African government representatives, especially with regards to the situation in Syria and the upcoming London Conference on Somalia.<\/p>\n

Hague\u2019s visits to South Africa follows recent successful visits of British Prime Minister David Cameron, the Prince of Wales and the Lord Mayor of London David Wootton.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile on Tuesday, Secretary Hague will deliver a key note address to an audience at the University of the Western Cape on \u2018Britain and South Africa: a 21st century relationship\u2019.<\/p>\nError, group does not exist! Check your syntax! (ID: 9)<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UK foreign minister in South Africa. British Foreign Secretary William Hague is in South Africa on official state business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,80,63,101,14],"tags":[339,21071,21069,21070,10992],"class_list":["post-16459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-breaking-news","category-daily","category-politics","category-world","tag-south-africa","tag-south-african-counterpart","tag-uk-foreign-minister","tag-uk-foreign-minister-south-africa","tag-william-hague"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16459\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}