French President Emmanuel Macron arrived for his first state visit to South Africa yesterday.
President Cyril Ramaphosa will host Macron and talks will focus on vaccine manufacture in South Africa.
Ramaphosa and Macron held a high-level seminar at the University of Pretoria, where they met with scientists and representatives of industry to discuss building capacity for vaccine manufacture, according to News24.
South Africa and India have led in lobbying the World Trade Organisation to enact a TRIPS waiver for the Covid-19 vaccine, known as the ACT Accelerator. The WTO’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) protects the intellectual property of vaccine manufacturers.
If TR|IPS is waived for the Covid-19 vaccine, generic pharmaceutical manufacturers could start producing the vaccine. Aspen Pharmacare has a vaccine manufacturing facility in Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth) and the public-private Biovac facility is situated in Cape Town.
South Africa is France’s largest trading partner in Africa, and the visit is intended to help strengthen ties and boost investment.
France is already lobbying the World Bank and International Monetary Fund for a greater share for Africa of the Special Drawing Rights reserve fund that could help economies recover from the pandemic. Ramaphosa travelled to Paris last week for Macron’s Summit on the Financing of African Economies.
Although not on the official agenda Ramaphosa and Macron will discuss the insurgency in northern Mozambique. On Thursday Ramaphosa travelled to Maputo for the Southern African Development Community’s extraordinary summit on the insurgency.