--By Consul-General You Wenze, published on Cape Times, April 6

The first session of the 14th National People's Congress has recently concluded successfully in Beijing. The session deliberated and approved a series important reports including the government work report, clarifying the overall requirements, major goals, and work priorities for China's economic and social development this year.

A new generation of national leaders was elected at the session, with General Secretary Xi Jinping being unanimously re-elected as the President of the People's Republic of China.     

This fully reflects the common aspirations of the entire Communist Party, army, and people of all ethnic groups in the country and fully embodies the high degree of unity of the will of the party, the will of the people, and the will of the country.

Last year was of great importance in the history of the Communist Party and our country. The Party successfully convened its 20th National Congress, during which it drew up an inspiring blueprint for building China into a modern socialist country in all respects and advancing the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts. 

Over the past year, China’s economy was impacted by Covid-19 and other domestic and international factors beyond our expectations. However, under the strong leadership of the Party Central Committee, China carried out Covid-19 response and pursued economic and social development in an effective and well-coordinated way. 

Gross domestic product (GDP) for year 2022 grew by 3%. A total of 12.06 million urban jobs were added, with the year-end surveyed urban unemployment rate falling to 5.5%. Breakthroughs were made in core technologies in key fields, and a stream of innovations emerged in areas such as manned spaceflight, lunar and Martian exploration, deep sea and deep earth probes, supercomputers, satellite navigation, quantum information, nuclear power technology, airliner manufacturing, artificial intelligence, and biomedicine. 

China deepened reform and opening up across the board in an effort to create a new pattern of development. Joint efforts to advance the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) made solid headway. Over the past decade, Chinese companies have invested 397.9 billion yuan (about 57 billion U.S. dollars) in cooperation zones built in countries along the Belt and Road, creating 421,000 local jobs.

From now until the middle of the century, the central task of the Chinese Communist Party and all Chinese people is to complete building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects and advance national rejuvenation on all fronts. 

In his address delivered at the closing meeting of the first session of the 14th National People’s Congress, President Xi  reiterated China's determination to unswervingly advance high-quality development and make concrete efforts to advance high-standard opening up, fully and faithfully apply the new development philosophy on all fronts and accelerate the efforts to foster a new development pattern,both widely recognized by the international community.

President Xi also stressed that China must strive to promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind. China's development benefits the world, and China cannot develop itself in isolation from the world. 

China will hold high the banner of peace, development, cooperation and mutual benefit, always stand on the right side of history, practice true multilateralism and the common values of mankind, actively participate in the reform and development of the global governance system, and promote the development of an open world economy.

China will promote the implementation of Global Development Initiative and Global Security Initiative so as to add more stability and positive energy to world peace and development.

China and South Africa have established a comprehensive strategic partnership since 2010, which covers a wide range of areas, including politics, economy, trade, culture, education, and people-to-people exchanges.

The two sides have been working closely on international issues, such as promoting multilateralism, fighting against unilateralism and protectionism, and safeguarding the common interests of developing countries.China has been South Africa's largest trading partner since 2009.

The two countries have been cooperating in various fields, including infrastructure construction, energy, agriculture, and telecommunications.Culturally, China and South Africa have been promoting people-to-people exchanges, with a number of Chinese cultural activities taking place in South Africa and vice versa.

Overall, the cooperation between China and South Africa has been mutually beneficial and has contributed to the development of both countries.

This year, we will celebrate the 25th anniversary of China-South Africa diplomatic relations, and South Africa will host the 15th BRICS Summit. This presents a new development opportunity for China-South Africa and China-Africa relations. China will fully support South Africa in its effort to make the BRICS Summit a great success.

Under the theme of "BRICS and Africa: Partnership for Mutually Accelerated Growth, Sustainable Development and Inclusive Multilateralism", we will deepen strategic partnership among BRICS countries, and help BRICS and Africa to achieve interlinked development, so that the "BRICS strength" will benefit more developing countries in Africa, and promote the building of a closer China-South Africa-Africa community with a shared future.