Signing a bilateral agreement with South Africa today at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, Fred Mitchell, the Bahamas’ foreign minister, said he hoped South Africans would take advantage of their tourism expertise.
“We want to try and reserve a set number of places in our school of tourism for South African students who want to make tourism a career,” he said.
Nkosozana Dlamini-Zuma, the South African foreign minister, said the country would be wise to learn from the Bahamas who already had a developed tourism industry.
Mitchell explained that despite only having a population of 300 000, the Bahamas had four million tourists a year visit their shores.
“We believe that we have an excellent school of tourism and hope that South African students might be interested and able to access education opportunities in that school to further tap the enormous potential of your country in the area of tourism,” he said.
South Africa and the Bahamas established diplomatic relations on July 28, 1994.
President Thabo Mbeki visited the Bahamas in December last year and the discussions held then lead to today’s signing of the bilateral agreement, Mitchell said.
“I believe that this agreement is historic for many reasons. This is among the first of its kind between South Africa and one of the nations of the Caribbean,” Mitchell said
He explained that it “represents the fulfilment of a dream of many of the sons and daughters of Africa who were extracted from the continent centuries ago and who have felt a keen need to reconnect with Africa.”
The Bahamian delegation leave South Africa tonight after having witnessed the Presidential inauguration on Tuesday and the swearing in of the Cabinet yesterday.
They will be taking with them a two-hour video of the inauguration, which they said would be shown on Bahamian television on their return.
SABCNews
