On July 8, 2009, Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo, who was to attend the outreach session of the G8 Summit on behalf of Chinese President Hu Jintao, met in the central Italian city of L'Aquila with Jacob Zuma, president of South Africa.

During the meeting, Dai first conveyed President Hu's sincere greetings to Zuma, as well as Hu's warm congratulations to Zuma on his election as president and on the victory of the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa's general election. Zuma expressed thanks and asked Dai to convey his greetings to President Hu.

Dai said President Zuma headed a delegation of the African National Congress (ANC) to visit China last June. During the visit, President Zuma and General Secretary Hu Jintao reached important consensus on strengthening pragmatic cooperation between the two countries and their ruling parties. Over the past year, with the joint efforts of both sides, the strategic partnership between the two countries continues to deepen with fruitful cooperation in all areas. Both sides have maintained close political exchanges and mutual understanding and support on major issues of mutual concern. The two sides have also kept communication and coordination in the United Nations, the Group of 20 and other multilateral frameworks and have enhanced consultation and cooperation in coping with the global financial crisis and other major international and regional issues. The ruling parties of the two countries have officially established their exchange mechanism and have kept closer their exchanges and cooperation. The economic and trade cooperation between the two countries also enjoys a strong momentum with closer ties on culture, education, tourism and sports.

Dai said both China and South Africa are important developing countries, and deepening the bilateral strategic partnership is not only in the fundamental interest of both countries and both peoples, but also helpful to China's pragmatic cooperation with Africa and with developing nations at large. As the global financial crisis has crippled the world economy and exerted negative impact on the people's life, Dai called for further all-round cooperation between the two countries. He urged both sides to join hands to tackle the financial crisis and promote common development. China is ready to work with South Africa to continue advancing bilateral all-round pragmatic cooperation in the following four aspects.

First, conduct more political communication and maintain the momentum of high-level exchanges. Both sides should enhance communication on bilateral ties and other issues of mutual concern and continue to support each other on issues concerning their respective major interests. Dai suggested both sides make good use of the mechanism for exchanges and cooperation between the two governments and the ruling parties of the two countries to share development experience and promote practical cooperation.

Second, expand trade and deepen economic cooperation. China appreciates the South African government's measures to cope with the global financial crisis and is ready to deepen cooperation with the country to overcome difficulties and strive to mitigate the negative impact of the crisis on the two economies.

Third, enrich humanities exchanges. China is ready to continue promoting exchanges and cooperation with South Africa in the areas of culture, education, health, journalism, academics and tourism.

Fourth, enhance multilateral cooperation. Both sides should continue to make use of such multilateral frameworks as the United Nations, the G8 outreach session and the Group of 20 to enhance communication and coordination on major international and regional issues, jointly deal with global challenges, push for the recovery of the world economy and safeguard common interests of developing nations at large.

Zuma, on his part, said South Africa attaches importance to its ties with China and is ready to strengthen exchanges between the governments and ruling parties of the two countries and promote cooperation on economy and trade, especially on textile and infrastructure. He also called on the two countries to expand humanities exchanges, keep closer coordination in international affairs and further deepen bilateral friendly cooperative relations.

Zuma said currently the relations among the world nations have become closer. The international community should enhance cooperation to jointly address the global challenges like the world economic slowdown and climate change. South Africa looks forward to discussions in this regard at the upcoming group meeting of leaders of five major developing countries as well as the G8 outreach session.

Dai said amid the ongoing financial crisis, China and Africa should support and cooperate with each other to tide over the difficulties. China is ready to help Africa to cope with the impact of the international financial crisis. China is also ready to work with African countries including South Africa to consolidate the traditional friendship, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation and push forward China-Africa new type of strategic partnership.

Zuma also extended his thanks for China's aid to Africa, saying that enhancing China-Africa cooperation is very important. The African countries are ready to work with China to jointly tackle the financial crisis.

Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, Chairman of China's National Development and Reform Commission Zhang Ping and Minister of Commerce Chen Deming attended the meeting.