The 9th Session of India-South Africa Foreign Office Consultations (FOC) took place today in New Delhi. The Indian Delegation was lead by Dr. Neena Malhotra, Joint Secretary (East and Southern Africa), Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi, and the South-African
side was led by Ambassador (Prof) Anil Sooklal, Deputy Director General, Asia and Middle-East, Department of International Relations and Cooperations, South African Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
During the meeting, the two sides discussed wide gamut of issues in the overall bilateral relations. They also reviewed the action taken on the decisions emerging from high-level visits between the two countries, and implementations of agreements between India
and South Africa. The two sides reviewed the implementation of the decisions of the 9th JMC on areas ranging from Defence, Security Matters, Trade, Economic and Technical Cooperation, Arts, Culture, Sports and Recreation, Minerals and Energy, Communication
and Information Technology, Human Resource Development, Consular and Immigration Affairs, Science, Technology and Innovation.
Multilateral issues pertaining to BRICS, IBSA, IORA, G-20 and UN related issues were discussed during the meeting. In addition, the calendar of events for 2018 was discussed, which also marks the 25 years of the establishment of diplomatic relationship between
our two countries.
Ambassador (Prof) Sooklal invited JS (E&SA) to come to South Africa for the next FOC early next year.