South Africa and Venezuela signed a key energy deal Tuesday which South African President Thabo Mbeki and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez touted as a "strategic" cooperation.

"We have agreed with President Chavez that indeed the relationship between Venezuela and South Africa should assume a strategic character," Mbeki said at a joint press conference following the signing.

Chavez, on a two-day visit, spoke passionately about the importance of the so-called south-south cooperation between Africa and South America.

"We are fully aware of the fact that we are visiting a mother because for us Africa is the mother. A good and a great mother," he said.

"We want to give this relationship a profoundly strategic character," said Chavez. The two countries signed a string of agreements on Tuesday mainly to strengthen cooperation in the energy sector.

"One of the purposes of the agreements is to cut out the intermediaries so you have direct state-to-state relations in this area (...) The objective is to assist in the process of reducing the cost of energy with a positive impact on the country and the lives of the people," Mbeki explained.

Pretoria sees Venezuela's oil as a way of circumventing the kind of crisis in the coal-driven electricity supply that stuck earlier this year when acute shortages caused widespread blackouts.

Venezuela, a member of oil cartel Opec (the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries), has one of the world's largest oil reserves.

AFP