Today, South Africa celebrates its Freedom Day. This day started in 1994 when the first democratic election was held in South Africa. All adults could vote irrespective of their race. It was also on this day in 1997 when the new constitution of South Africa took effect.

The land now known as South Africa was originally populated by San hunter-gatherers. About 2,000 years ago, the people in some of these communities, the Khoikhoi, began raising livestock when they acquired animals from Bantu-speaking peoples moving southward. These Bantu peoples today account for three quarters of the total population of South Africa. White settlement began in 1652 with the arrival of the Dutch, who gradually spread into the interior as farmers. They lived isolated lives, developed their own language, called Afrikaans, and increasingly segregated themselves from the indigenous peoples whom they encountered in the interior. French Huguenot and German settlers were later absorbed into this group, known as Afrikaners.

British settlers arrived beginning in the early 1800s, and Indians came in the late 19th and early 20th century. A substantial Portuguese minority developed in the late 20th century. The offspring of whites and slaves imported by the Dutch from Southeast Asia and other parts of Africa, and later the offspring of whites and Bantu peoples, created a sizable mixed-race population.

South Africa is changing economically from a producer of raw materials to an industrial nation that produces both raw materials and commercial products. The nation's manufacturing, commerce, and services have been built extensively on the foundations of mining and farming. The economy remained primarily agricultural for much of the 19th century until the discovery of diamonds at Kimberley in 1867 and gold on the Witwatersrand in the 1880s. Mining quickly became dominant, but was overtaken by manufacturing during World War II.

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in South Africa is over US $2,200 per year, which ranks South Africa alongside other middle-income countries such as Chile, Mexico, Hungary, Thailand, and Malaysia.

Principal international trading partners of South Africa — besides other African countries — include Germany, the United States, China, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Spain. Chief exports include corn, diamonds, fruits, gold, metals and minerals, sugar, and wool. Machinery and transportation equipment make up more than one-third of the value of the country's imports. Other imports include chemicals, manufactured goods, and petroleum.

We congratulate the people and government of South Africa led by H.E., President Kgalema Motlanthe, and its Embassy in the Philippines headed by H.E., Ambassador Pieter Vermeulen, on the