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A signing ceremony was held yesterday at the Union Buildings, attended by President Cyril Ramaphosa and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who have been engaged in bilateral talks over the past month.

With load shedding being at the forefront of the SA government’s concerns, affected by issues such as Cape Town’s Koeberg power plant being repaired this year, China has offered a light in the darkness through negotiations with Ramaphosa.

Ten memoranda of understanding (MOUs), encompassing various sectors, were processes and signed, with the biggest hum-dinger being a large donation to SA of emergency energy equipment valued at R170 million.

The Minister of Electricity, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, and his Chinese counterpart, Luo Zhaohui, helped secure the energy infrastructure through ongoing correspondence between the two governments.

According to the MOU in question, we should be receiving a hefty amount of generators, electric vehicles, solar PV batteries and inverters. That’s a lot of extra juice for the grid; the hope is that the new equipment will bolster power capabilities for key public facilities like hospitals, clinics, and correctional institutions.

Minister Ramokgopa also committed to a cooperative agreement in green energy, a vital step toward sustainable energy development, and was overall extremely pleased with the outcome of the negotiations regarding all things power:

“This will relieve the load on the grid because these facilities will use alternative sources, and then we can relieve the degree of load-shedding.”

Sounds like something all us Saffas can get behind – let there be light!

Another notable collaboration that came out of the discussions is a bizarre trade export deal surrounding a delicacy food item.

According to agriculture Minister Thoko Didiza, we’ll soon be sending avocados to China. Yup, apparently our avo sector is hitting a boom and we can start exporting, which is news to me. I just hope that this also means the price of avos will decrease for us in SA. Didiza does seem confident though, and has a plan to make it work for our economy:

“The avocado industry has expanded by 4,750 hectares in recent years, bringing the total hectarage to over 18,000 … This will have a multiplication effect which will have growth in employment, skills and economic development in particular the rural areas of our country where the majority of avocados are produced.”

Considering that China is South Africa’s largest global trading partner and reciprocally, South Africa is China’s largest market on the continent, it seems like a clever move for both countries.

You had me at emergency energy equipment, but let’s just read the fine print carefully before we get too excited.

[source:timeslive]