South Africa regarded as Vietnam’s important development and cooperation partner in Africa

The affirmation was made by Deputy Foreign Minister Pham Quang Hieu at the fifth meeting of the Intergovernmental Partnership Forum for Economic, Trade, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation between Vietnam and South Africa, which was held virtually on April 14 under the co-chair of Deputy FM Hieu and South African Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Candith Mashego-Dlamini.

Upon addressing the session, Deputy Minister Pham Quang Hieu highlighted the nation’s determination to boost comprehensive cooperation with South Africa, and showed his elation to see cooperation between both countries grow steadily during nearly three decades since the establishment of their diplomatic ties, with major achievements recorded in important fields such as politics, diplomacy, defence, security, trade, investment, and agriculture.

South Africa is currently Vietnam's largest trading partner in Africa.

Deputy Minister Candith Mashego-Dlamini underscored Vietnam's important position in South Africa's foreign policy in Asia as well as in Southeast Asia, and hailed the positive developments in Vietnam-South Africa relations and the close coordination between the two countries at multilateral forums.

The two diplomats congratulated the tremendous achievements both nations have obtained in socio-economic development as well as in response to the COVID-19 pandemic over the past time. They expressed their belief that socio-economic recovery and development policies of each country have been and will be successfully carried out in the time ahead.

In the spirit of friendship and mutual understanding, the two sides held in-depth discussions on bilateral cooperation results since the previous meeting regarding politics, diplomacy, trade, investment, agriculture, defence, security, education, training, science, technology, justice, tourism, and the environment as well as cooperation between localities.

In line with this, they also compared notes on a score of specific measures to improve efficiency and deepen the sound cooperative relations between the two countries.

The two sides consented to maintain the exchange of high-level delegations, strengthen mutual support at international and regional forums as well as promote effective bilateral cooperation mechanisms to match the good political relations and huge economic potential.

They showed their resolve to work closely to expand the scale and structure of trade exchange, and step up cooperation in industry, agriculture, investment and tourism.

Both sides affirmed the importance of bolstering cooperation in defence, security, justice, environment, science, technology, education and training, and proposed studying the possibility of expanding cooperation to other fields that both sides have needs and potential such as construction, information, communication, and labor.

The pair agreed on measures to effectively implement signed documents, speed up the negotiation and signing of important cooperation documents being exchanged as well as proposing solutions to remove obstacles and difficulties in the current bilateral cooperation.

At the end of the session, the two Deputy FMs agreed to hold the next meeting in South Africa, slated for 2024, and signed the minutes of the 5th session of the Vietnam-South Africa Intergovernmental Partnership Forum via an online platform.