MOSCOW, May 9 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Saturday congratulated Jacob Zuma on his inauguration as South Africa's president.

South Africa's parliament, dominated by the African National Congress following last month's elections, confirmed the ANC's controversial leader as the new president in a vote on Wednesday.

"In recent years, the development of Russian-South African relations attained a powerful momentum," Medvedev said in his message, the Kremlin press service reported.

"Our countries have set about the serious joint work of deepening all-around practical cooperation, realizing major investment projects in the areas of trade, economics, and science and technology, as well as in the mineral production and processing sector," the president added.

The ANC got two thirds of the vote in the April 22 parliamentary elections, giving it 264 seats in parliament. The Democratic Alliance is the next largest party with 67 seats.

Zuma has survived a corruption scandal, acquittal in a rape case and a bitter internal party struggle to reach the presidency, and now faces twin challenges of large-scale unemployment and an AIDS crisis in which hundreds of people die every day.