April 14 (Reuters) – Germany has agreed to give South Africa a new 200 million euro ($234 million) concessional climate loan, and the two countries will deepen cooperation in other areas like critical minerals, South Africa’s foreign minister said on Monday.
The loan will support investment in South Africa’s power grid and renewable energy capacity, Minister Ronald Lamola said after talks with German counterpart Johann Wadephul in Berlin.
He said German and European Union funding for green hydrogen and battery value chain cooperation had also been extended by more than 270 million euros.
Lamola thanked Wadephul for German support despite South Africa’s strained relationship with the United States during President Donald Trump’s second term in office.
Trump has excluded South Africa from meetings of the Group of 20 nations this year, criticising its foreign policy and domestic race and land laws intended to redress inequalities stemming from centuries of colonialism and apartheid. He boycotted a G20 summit in Johannesburg in November.
South Africa’s government has defended its policies, saying they are designed to address disparities that are still faced by the country’s Black majority more than 30 years after the end of white minority rule.
It says Trump has taken a punitive stance against the country based on “misinformation and distortions”.
Trump has alleged that South Africa’s government persecutes its white minority, and that there has been a genocide of white farmers in the country, claims that have been widely discredited and strongly rejected by South Africa’s government.
Despite Trump excluding South Africa from this year’s G20 meetings, Lamola said: “We feel we are part of it (the G20) because of the support that we have received from Germany and from other G20 members.”
($1 = 0.8547 euros)
(Reporting by Nilutpal Timsina and Anathi Madubela; Editing by Alexander Winning and Jan Harvey)
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