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| Spokesperson to the President Vincent Magwenya__Photo: VNA |
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s upcoming state visit to Vietnam aims to expand bilateral relations across all fields, including trade and critical areas of the economy, like agriculture, defense, technology, Spokesperson to the President Vincent Magwenya told the Vietnam News Agency (VNA)'s resident correspondent in Pretoria ahead of the trip.
He underlined that the relationship between South Africa and Vietnam dates back to the days of struggle for independence of both countries. Both countries have shared deep roots in terms of solidarity and they are focusing on taking the relationship forward and elevating it to a strategic partnership, and stronger trade cooperation.
Magwenya described President Ramaphosa’s visit as strategic and significant in promoting bilateral trade, contributing to fulfilling South Africa’s trade diversification strategy and expanding access into existing markets.
He noted that over the last 30 years, bilateral trade has been steadily increasing, and there is certainly, from President Ramaphosa's perspective, more room to grow the trade, to expand on people-to-people ties and to exchange learnings and perspectives.
Magwenya said that the two sides have shared close bilateral cooperation at multilateral forum like the UN, G20 and other key multilateral platforms, as well as same values and same perspectives in terms of reforms. He said such collaboration is hoped to be strengthened by this visit and the elevation of the relationship to a strategic partnership.
Regarding potential cooperation areas for the two sides, he highlighted trade ties, which have steady increased over the years, reaching about 31 billion ZAR (1.79 billion USD). The two sides have also enjoyed fruitful knowledge exchanges and South Africa find a great deal of inspiration in how Vietnam has reconstructed itself from a country that was mired in conflict. Vietnam’s ambition to become a country with high income by 2045 is also inspiring.
According to the Spokesperson, during the upcoming visit, President Ramaphosa is scheduled to attend the signing ceremony of the United Nations Convention against Cybercrime (Hanoi Convention), which he described as a joint effort to deal with challenges from cybercrime at a multilateral level.
Magwenya stressed that technology is evolving quite fast and quite rapidly, requiring all countries, policy makers, as decision makers, to also sharpen their responses. He stated that global wide cooperation is critical in stemming the tide of cybercrimes, ensuring that AI does not become destructive, but it becomes a good force for change and development, particularly in the Global South.
The Spokesperson said that following the state visit to Vietnam, President Ramaphosa will also undertake a state visit to Indonesia and then attend the 47th ASEAN Summit as the Guest of the Chair.
The President believes that this visit will cement all these opportunities that are there between South Africa and the Southeast Asia region, and his attendance of the ASEAN Summit is aimed at bridging the distance physically and geographically. This is an opportune time for South Africa, as well as for Africa to cement closer ties with the ASEAN region for the benefit of their people, said the Spokesperson.- (VNA/VLLF)
