On September 9, Li Bin, minister of the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC), met with Pakishe Aaron Motsoaledi, South Africa’s health minister in Beijing. Both sides exchanged ideas about deepening cooperation in healthcare and medical science.

Li Bin said the comprehensive strategic partnership between China and South Africa is gradually deepening with all fields seeing strong cooperation. China attaches great importance to cooperation in the health field with South Africa, and it is willing to push forward the establishment of bilateral and multilateral health cooperation mechanism, as well as the renewal of the memorandum of understanding on the two countries’ cooperation in health and medical science. China hopes to set up a working mechanism on contagious disease information exchange and health policies exchange, and promote exchange between the two countries’ medical colleges. China will further strengthen cooperation with WHO and BRICS countries in the health sector. Li also introduced the situation of China’s healthcare reform and the prevention of contagious diseases.

Motsoaledi said that China is an important partner of South Africa; both sides have much to do in the healthcare sector. Renewing the memorandum of understanding is a common need. The two countries are far from each other, but they face many similar challenges, giving them many chances to cooperate in different sectors. He highly praised the improvement of China’s healthcare and medical science sectors. South Africa will learn experiences from China in contagious disease prevention and healthcare system construction, pushing forward exchange and cooperation in personnel training and medical research.

Both sides reached a consensus on renewing the memorandum of understanding on health and medical science.

Bheki Langa, the South African ambassador to China, attended the meeting along with people in charge of the NHFPC’s health emergency response office; departments of healthcare reform; department of health science, technology and education; and international cooperation.

Pakishe Aaron Motsoaledi was invited to visit China from September 8 to 11 and attended the World Economic Forum in Tianjin.