Your Excellencies, Honourable Doctors, Health Care Professionals, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure and honour for me to address you today with an aim to deepen and widen the collaboration between South Africa and Sweden in the area of health.

Before going any further on the subject of future co-operation within the medical and health care sectors, I would like to say a few words about the special relation that exist between our two countries.

Sweden and South Africa have excellent relations. The roots of this close relationship grew during the long and difficult struggle against apartheid for freedom and democracy. During several decades Sweden was in the forefront of the international community supporting the South African struggle under the strong leadership of the ANC. This cooperation created close bonds between our two countries on political, professional as well as on personal levels. This special relationship makes the celebration of 10 years of democracy feel all the more special to us.

In fact, it was the liberation struggle in South Africa that in the mid 1980s made me get politically involved. I was 14 years old and struck by the fact that people were discriminated against because of the colour of their skin.

Our partnership has a long history but also a bright future.

Today we stand together on a solid base of friendship and solidarity. Our contacts and cooperation are fruitful. On the highest level, pPresident Mbeki and Prime Minister Persson has created a South African- Swedish Binational Commission, which meets on a biannual basis. Within the framework of the Binational Commission, we have jointly established the South Africa Sweden Health Forum, to have a political dialogue and technical collaboration to address important health issues for the mutual benefit of our two countries. Areas identified for collaboration include:

- Communicable diseases, including HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria
- Sexual and reproductive health and rights
- Health promotion and health impact assessment
- Health research
- Health reforms
- Health technology assessment 
- Injury prevention and road safety

After my meeting yesterday with the Honorable Minister of Health, we are considering broadening our collaboration to also include non-communicable diseases and lifestyle issues as determinants of health.

Today I have the honour to lead a prominent Swedish health care delegation consisting of both companies and academics representing the best Sweden has to offer in terms of medical and health care technology and services. It is my wish that closer commercial and academic ties in the area of health can further strengthen our partnership and that seminar here today can contribute to establishing such links.

I feel very strongly about health issues. In Sweden and South Africa alike, the health status of a person is too much determined by the social-group the person belongs to. A society that aims at improving the health of its people must therefore do so by improving the living conditions of people. Unemployment must be vigorously fought, inequities must be addressed and a system of general welfare must be built. I also strongly believe that improving gender equality and especially to get men to take a greater responsibility is very beneficial to the overall well-being and health of a society.

As minister for public health and social services, I am responsible for questions that effect peoples health and well being in their daily life. I usually say that a nation should be judged by the way it takes care of its most vulnerable citizens. In these matters none of our countries is an ideal state. We all have social problems to face. Therefore, we should cooperate in fields where we can make a difference together.

In Africa the HIV/AIDS-pandemic is posing a threat to the overall development. To act strongly against the spread of HIV/AIDS is one of the most important challenges of our time. We can meet this menace to development only if we work together and address all relevant aspects. Awareness is increasing and programmes are put in place to combat the wide spread consequences posed by the pandemic. South Africa has embarked upon an ambitious programme for distribution of anti-retro vital drugs and I sincerely hope that this programme will be successful. Its successful implementation, amongst other things, relies on strengthening the health care system.

Access to health care based on the need for care rather than the ability to pay is one of the pillars in the Swedish welfare system. The Swedish Health and Medical Services Act states that Health and medical services are aimed at assuring the entire population of good health and of care on equal terms. There is a strong public support for the health care system and primary health care remains the base of our system. The Swedish health care system is generally acknowledged to be among the best in the world. We continuously strive to develop our health services but as we do so, we continue to be true to the fundamental values of equity, universality and solidarity on which our health care system is based.

[The commitment to accessible, high-quality and financially sustainable healthcare is an important force in fighting the ideas of a market based health care. International experience tells us that universal systems are better able to control costs and better equipped to modernise and improve health care services. Health care systems that are accessible to everyone are superior in terms of both equity and efficiency.]

Public spending on health care is in my view too much viewed as a cost and burden to society. We need to change focus - money spent on healthcare is an investment in jobs, in technology, in a service that citizens consistently rate as one of their primary concerns, and in providing the healthy and active population on which our overall development depends.

- Investment in health drives growth.
- Investment in health drives employment.
- Investment in health drives development.

To achieve quality health care, it is also important to make investments in medical research. In Sweden, the close cooperation between the well-developed health care system and highly developed and sophisticated medical research has resulted in the development of a successful medical industry, including some of the most well known companies in the world in their respective area of specialties. Swedish innovations and research results consists, for instance, of the artificial kidney, the artificial respirator, the gamma knife, opthamologicla viso-surgery, local anaestitics and Losec, the gastrointestinal agent, to mention a few. Some of the companies behind these ground-breaking innovations participate here today and I urge you to have further contact and discussions with them during the day. At the moment, around 100 medical and other Swedish companies are established in South Africa.

Sweden believes in sharing its knowledge. We are therefore keen to promote cooperation between Swedish and South African companies and institutions. I hope that this gathering today can contribute to this.

Before concluding I would like to come back to my starting point: the close relationship between Sweden and South Africa. We should continue to build on that as we now move ahead in trying to nurture the dialogue between Africa and Europe, the African Union and the European Union and the South and the North. Close partners trusting each other can achieve a lot. In an interview in 1995 Walter Sisulu commented on the need for a continuation of the relationship between South Africa and Sweden, as well as the other Nordic countries and I quote him: It must grow! It must be intensified! We just cannot afford to loose it, to allow it to cool down. It must continue on a high level, because we are not only dealing with a particular struggle. We now have a fiddle and we have a role to play on the international arena. We have to see to it that good friends such as we have had are maintained. And that we together will work out a new programme, a new era, a new approach. I can assure you that Sweden will continue to be guided by Walter Sisulus inspired wish for the future.

Thank you!