A launch ceremony for China Media Group (CMG) and South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) to co-produce a documentary series about friendship and cooperation between the two countries was held in Johannesburg, South Africa on Wednesday.
The documentary series, entitled "25 Years On -- Documenting China-South Africa Friendship and Cooperation," features the brotherly relationship between China and South Africa and prospects of building a high-level China-South Africa community with a shared future.
CMG President Shen Haixiong, also vice minister of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, and Yolande van Biljon, CFO of the SABC, attended the launch ceremony and witnessed the exchange of agreement.

CMG senior executive Li Ting and Ian Plaatjes, Chief Operations Officer of the SABC, exchanged the cooperation agreement.
Addressing the ceremony, Shen said this year marks the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relationship between China and South Africa and the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Over the past 25 years, China-South Africa relations have become one of the most dynamic bilateral relations among developing countries.

President Xi met with President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday and they reached an important consensus on the development of bilateral relations in the new era. The two sides pledged to inherit friendship, deepen cooperation and strengthen cooperation, which will surely push China-South Africa comprehensive strategic partnership to a new level.

Shen expressed his hope that the two sides could take this opportunity to continue to explore a new model of all-round mutually beneficial cooperation and make greater contributions to enhancing the communication between the people of China and South Africa and mutual learning between civilizations.

Biljon said that the SABC, as the largest broadcasting company in Africa, urgently needs to seek more and better partners in the fields of news content, technical exchange and knowledge sharing in order to adapt to the new development, and the CMG is their best choice. The launch of the co-production documentary is the first achievement in the memorandum of cooperation signed by the two sides three days ago, marking the beginning of the strategic partnership between the two sides. She looks forward to exchanges and cooperation with the CMG in more fields in the future.

The documentary series presents the achievements of cooperation between China and South Africa in foreign affairs, economic cooperation and cultural exchanges in a panoramic way, and displays the overall situation of friendly cooperation between the two countries through vivid stories. The production will be broadcast simultaneously in Chinese and English through CCTV and SABC.
Established in 1936, the SABC is a public broadcasting organization in South Africa, with five TV channels and 19 broadcasting frequencies, which are broadcast in 11 official languages of South Africa. In 2022, it launched the streaming media service platform "SABC+."