
Pretoria (VNA) – Vice State President VoThi Anh Xuan held talks with South African Deputy President Paul Mashatile onSeptember 15, within the framework of her official visit to the country.
Xuan spoke highly of South Africa’s leading role in thecontinent as well as its important contributions to international forums, and congratulatedthe country on successfully organising the recent BRICS Summit.
For his part, Paul Mashatile welcomed the Vietnamese VicePresident’s visit and described it as an important event taking place on theoccasion of the two countries celebrating the 30th anniversary of their diplomatic relations (1993 - 2023).
He expressed his impression with Vietnam’s dynamicdevelopment achievements as well as its increasing role and position inSoutheast Asia and the Asia-Pacific, and emphasised that solidarity andmutual supports in the fight for national independence and freedom are importantfactors for the two countries to promote multi-faceted cooperation in national construction and development.
The two sides spoke highly of the positivedevelopments in cooperative relations between the two countries over the pastthree decades.

Vietnam and South Africa have become important partners of eachother in Africa and Southeast Asia. South Africa is currently Vietnam's largesttrade partner in Africa, with two-way turnover reaching nearly 1.3 billion USDin 2022.

Collaboration in defence-security, economic, agricultural investment, culture,education-training and people-to-people exchanges has also made positiveprogress.

On the same day, Xuan metGeneral Secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP) Solly Mapaila and Minister of South African Public Enterprises Pravin Ghordan, cut the ribbon at aninauguration ceremony of the Vietnamese Cultural Space in South Africa, and attended a ceremony to mark the78th anniversary of Vietnam's National Day and the 30th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between Vietnam and South Africa./.