South Africa has become a sought after partner on the global stage with many countries competing for ties with the country that is the last on the African continent to be liberated.
Vietnam has become the latest to court Pretoria and this week a large team of the senior leadership of the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam coming into the country to lobby the ANC with whom they have had fraternal relations build on resistance resistance politics. The ANC regards the Communist Party of Vietnam as a long time ally having assisted in the resistance against apartheid.
The Vietnamese delegation led by member of the Central Committee and the Politburo Phan Dinh Trac who is the second in command of the party and met with the ANC including with the officials on the sidelines of Monday’s National Working Committee. The delegation were upfront about the mission for their visit and proposed to the ANC that a technical team constituted by both sides be set up to hold a virtual meeting in order to discuss among others depending political ties but most importantly increasing trade between them. Dinh Trac said through a translator that South Africa could benefit a lot from relations with Vietnam which he said was a shining example of a successful socialist project marked by a thriving mixed economy that is reliant on the among others agriculture and the services sector.
“We are a developing country with a very high middle income. Our goal is to become a developing country with high middle income and modern industry by 2030 and to become a developing country with high income by 2045. the size of the GDP of Vietnam, 430, 30 billion US dollars, ranking 34 host is still,” he said.
Only about 2 percent of Vietnam’s 100 million citizens live in poverty with unemployment seating at a low 4 percent. Dinh Trac also said Vietnam which has already entered into a number of memorandums of understanding with South Africa in the areas of anti-corruption and cyber security said further cooperation could be exploited which may help South Africa deal with its crime problem which is partly to blame for the current stagnant economy. The Vietnamese also want their farmers to access South Africa and other markets on the continent to supply rice. While Vietnam is a major producer of rice, South Africa already gets its supply from Indonesia, the world’s third largest producer after China and India.
“In order to consolidate and promote the bilateral relations between the two parties in the two countries, I’d like to propose directions and specific measures. Firstly, the two sides continue to accelerate, to accelerate the delegation, Exchange, or labor, especially the delegation of the party, the government and the National Assembly of the two countries. We propose that the two The two sides will soon all the organized online talks Technical, president of ANC, Vice President and leader of the ANC to pay a visit to Vietnam.
A meeting is proposed between the General Secretary, the President of Vietnam come back to long, and the President of South African President of ANC. Have member comrade president, visited Vietnam into 1016 at that time his vice deputy president,” he said also requesting Ramaphosa to invite Vietnam to the G20 summit to be hosted in 2025.
During the brief meet and greet, Ramaphosa agreed to visit Vietnam and indicated he was open to exploring trade talks.
“I am happy to accept an invitation to visit Vietnam. I’d like to go to Vietnam again, so we will coordinate that with our office. You are most welcome to attend the g20 we will make sure that as our friend, we invite you to come and be part of the g20 in 2025 that will help also to solidify the relations between South Africa and Vietnam, and I hope that I’ll be able to visit Vietnam before then, so that we explore areas of improving our relations, increasing trade and investment between our two countries,” said the President.