Chairperson of the House, Minister Nkoana Mashabane, Deputy Minister Ebrahim, other Ministers and Deputy Ministers that are here, hon Members of Parliament, Your Excellencies Ambassadors and High Commissioners, the presentation of our budget to this House today comes, as the Minister has said, just 49 days before the kickoff of the Fifa World Cup tournament - the first time ever on African soil. It is with a sense of excitement that our country readies itself to welcome hundreds of thousands of fans from across the length and breadth of our continent and from all over the world.
The Fifa World Cup will be important to South Africa in many ways. It will showcase South Africa to the world as a tourism and investment destination. It will enable us to show that South Africa and Africa can successfully host an event of this magnitude, and thus it will give us an opportunity to realise some of our objectives as a country.
The Minister spoke of how we leverage support for our national interests through our international relations work. During the World Cup we will have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do this not just through the experience of the fans that come, but also through the television coverage all over the world.
The Minister has also described our work as bridge-builders and as pathfinders for new opportunities in our efforts to build our country. We want to show today how we are doing that and draw a definitive link between our international efforts and our ambitions for a better life for all our people.
Thus, our work starts here in South Africa and then extends to the international community through a very extensive network of bilateral relationships with virtually every country in the world. We have missions in 107 countries and representations through nonresident ambassadors in many more. Naturally, though, we place emphasis on our relationship with neighbours on the continent and our immediate neighbours in the Southern African Development Community, SADC, region.
Working with our sister departments of Finance and of Trade and Industry, we have made significant progress over the past few years in integrating our region. We already have strong political bonds with our neighbouring countries, which bonds have their roots in our history. It is our challenge now to translate those strong bonds into practical benefits for our people.
Having launched the SADC Free Trade Area in 2008, our work now focuses on consolidating the FTA and moving steadily towards a SADC-wide customs union. Currently, 13 countries with a registered market of 170 million people with a combined GDP worth US$360 billion comprise our SADC FTA region. When Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo join, 77 million more people will be added, with an additional market of US$71 billion. Such a position will greatly enhance our attractiveness as a trading entity and we continue to work actively to consolidate this position.
This process of regional integration has to leverage the experience of our 100-year-old Southern African Customs Union, Sacu. It is also critical that, as we build the SADC-wide customs union, we are vigilant and ensure that the measures we take will serve to cushion us during the stormy periods, such as the current global economic crisis. Therefore, we must build a customs union able to diversify its economic relations, particularly with the rapidly growing markets of the South.
At the frontline of our efforts in promoting our trade and economic interests are our diplomats, posted in all corners of the world. The chairperson of the portfolio committee will be very pleased to know that these diplomats are now all exposed to specialised training in economic diplomacy. The main elements of this training focus on providing diplomats with an analysis of the international economic environment, and on studying legal aspects of economic interaction, as well as on briefings on the interrelations between economic policy and South Africa's foreign policy.
We use both our bilateral relationships and the many multilateral forums to which we belong to promote South Africa and encourage investment. A huge opportunity to promote South Africa this year will be the Shanghai Expo in China, to be officially opened on 1 May 2010. This is a world expo, which only takes place every five years and is considered the Olympics of economy, science and technology. It gives South Africa the opportunity to showcase itself as a unique combination of a modern economy that is globally oriented, but with the spirit, energy and human-centeredness of Africa.
We have a magnificent South African pavilion, which we anticipate will attract much interest from the estimated 70 million visitors to the expo. Several South African companies, including those with cutting-edge technologies, will participate in our pavilion, and we will have the opportunity to further promote the Fifa World Cup to this huge audience.
South Africa is the largest economy on the African continent, and our diplomatic efforts are as extensive as those of many countries that are larger and more powerful than we are. We believe this imposes on us a particular responsibility, a duty. We see our work therefore as not only promoting the interests of South Africa's people, but also the interests of our neighbours on the continent, whose interests must also be a priority for us.
South Africa has a modern infrastructure including a sophisticated telecommunications network, a highly developed financial services industry and developed transport networks, amongst other things. We are therefore in a strong position on the continent to act as a hub, a stimulus for growth in the region and a driver of continental prosperity. To us, a prosperous continent will be to the benefit of all of us.
So, since our country gained its freedom, South Africa has focused its foreign policy on this African agenda, on building African institutions and on promoting peace on the continent. We have spent considerable energy and resources on these efforts and, as mentioned by the Minister, we now need to consolidate those efforts and streamline them to the greatest effect.
To do this we have begun work on the establishment of the South African Development Partnership Agency, which was mentioned by other colleagues in the House today. The concept of such an agency has been agreed by Cabinet and we are working on the next stage of its development. Our thinking includes working on the existing African Renaissance and International Co- operation Fund, or ARF, and expanding it to become the envisaged agency. This will require a new piece of legislation, which will be brought before this Parliament in due course.
It is envisaged that such funding as is already earmarked for the ARF will form part of the initial budget of the agency. We have held discussions with many similar agencies in other countries, including those countries from the developed and developing worlds, to gain from international experience and to inform our work in this regard. We have had an enthusiastic response from our development partners, and will continue discussions with them so as to leverage trilateral co-operation methods to further enhance the effectiveness and the impact of the agency. Members will be engaged in this discussion through the lawmaking process, and we look forward to your inputs in this regard. The focus of the partnership agency will be on African partnerships. The Minister outlined earlier the work we do in the African Union context. It was therefore with great humility that we received the support of the African Union in our bid to serve a second term on the United Nations Security Council as a nonpermanent member.
And, as the Minister also said, our current membership of the AU Peace and Security Council will provide us with good synergy in promoting a closer relationship between regional structures and the United Nations Security Council. We will keep this House updated on developments in this regard as the campaign for our candidature progresses.
I would like to acknowledge the distinguished guests we have here today from the institutions studying international relations, and our guests from academia, from the business community and from the diplomatic corps. I would like to thank them for their ongoing co-operation.
In line with the Minister's leadership in bringing international relations to our people, I have also invited here today to this Budget Vote debate some members of my own community: from Stellenbosch, where I'm deployed in a constituency office; and from Claremont, where I work with a community- based group of domestic workers on a housing project; as well as my comrades in my branch. [Applause.]
I did this so that they could be here, in a sense representing the broader South African community, so they could see how our international efforts impact on the lives of ordinary South Africans. I wish to thank them all for coming, and I hope that they have found this interesting and that they now understand why I'm so often absent.
I would also like to thank Minister Nkoana-Mashabane and Deputy Minister Ebrahim for the great pleasure of being able to work with them. I too would like to acknowledge with thanks and appreciation the professionalism and support that I receive from our director-general and the officials he so ably leads. They are some of our brightest minds and contribute significantly to the challenging world of our international interactions.
I am very proud to be part of our South African diplomatic service. I thank them all most sincerely for their hard work and dedication to the cause of South Africa's international work. Thank you very much. [Applause.]