South Africa bolsters relations with Vietnam

Pretoria (VNA) – The official visit to Vietnam by Deputy President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa from October 3-4 aims to further political, economic and trade relations between the two countries.

According to the South Africa’s Presidency, the South African government highly values potential for economic cooperation with Vietnam – one of the highest-growth economies in Southeast Asia.

Vietnam could bring enormous trade opportunities for South African businesses, especially in the fields of transport, mining, infrastructure building, and defense industry.

On the occasion of the Deputy President’s visit, South Africa hopes to diversify its export products to Vietnam – a new potential market.

Ramaphosa will exchange with Vietnamese leaders about increasing the number of South African students majoring in marine economy in Vietnam, including shipbuilding.

The visit is expected to create new development in the bilateral traditional friendship, especially in the sea-based economy.

Vietnam’s fishing and aquatic breeding sector constitutes one of the important development programmes to help South Africa reduce poverty and address unemployment.

According to the latest statistics from South Africa, Vietnam is currently its fourth biggest trade partner in Southeast Asia with two-way trade surpassing 18.5 billion Rand (around 1.3 billion USD) compared to 13.4 billion Rand (1.1 billion USD) in 2014.-VNA