Upgrading Vietnam-South Africa relations to Strategic Partnership

Photo caption — Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh met with President of the Republic of South Africa, G20 Chair 2025, Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa. Photo: Duong Giang/VNA

President Ciryl Ramaphosa expressed his pleasure at meeting Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh again, recalled his deep impressions of the beautiful country and people of Vietnam, which are developing strongly, and once again thanked the Vietnamese leaders and people for the warm and respectful welcome given to the President and the high-ranking delegation of South Africa during their State visit to Vietnam last October.

President Ciryl Ramaphosa warmly welcomed Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and the high-ranking Vietnamese delegation to the G20 Summit, demonstrating Vietnam's solidarity and active support for South Africa, affirming that South Africa always considers Vietnam a close traditional friend and a leading important partner of South Africa in Asia.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh congratulated the President of South Africa on the strong development steps and the increasing role and position of South Africa in the international arena. On this occasion, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh respectfully conveyed the warm regards of General Secretary To Lam, President Luong Cuong, and National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man to President Ramaphosa and the South African leaders.

Thanking the South African President for inviting Vietnam to attend the G20 Summit, the Prime Minister believes that with South Africa's role, position and experience, the Summit will be a great success, promoting the participation of countries, including developing countries, in global governance for peace, cooperation, stability and development.

Implementing the commitment during the State visit of the South African President to Vietnam, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and South African President Ciryl Ramaphosa officially announced the upgrading of Vietnam - South Africa relations to a Strategic Partnership, a historic milestone bringing bilateral relations into depth, substance, effectiveness, on the basis of trust.

To effectively implement the Strategic Partnership framework, the two leaders agreed to assign the competent agencies of the two countries to promptly develop an Action Plan to implement the newly established framework, concretizing the content of the Joint Statement on the establishment of the Strategic Partnership, in order to create a breakthrough and turn the Vietnam - South Africa relationship into a model of cooperation between southern countries.

The two sides also affirmed their commitment to further promote economic, trade and investment cooperation, considering this the focus of cooperation between the two countries, promptly negotiating an agreement and immediately establishing a working group on promoting market opening for goods and products of each side, striving to soon increase bilateral trade turnover to 4-5 billion USD in the next 2 to 3 years.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh proposed that the two sides upgrade the Intergovernmental Committee mechanism from the Deputy Minister level to the Foreign Minister level; and asked South Africa to promote the early official launch of negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA) with the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), creating the most favorable conditions for businesses of the two countries to expand cooperation and investment in various fields, especially in infrastructure, green economy, digital economy, telecommunications, agricultural production and processing, energy, electric vehicle production, and Halal industry development...

Along with that, promote defense and security cooperation; strengthen cooperation in new fields such as science and technology, innovation, artificial intelligence, create conditions for Vietnamese enterprises to participate in 5G projects, digital transformation in South Africa; promote cooperation in tourism, education and training, labor, sports, culture and people-to-people exchange.

The two leaders also agreed to continue negotiations and soon sign more important cooperation documents to create a legal and institutional framework for bilateral relations, such as agreements on double taxation avoidance, visa exemption for ordinary passport holders, and cooperation in crime prevention.

Discussing regional and international issues of mutual concern, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and President Cyril Ramaphosa agreed that the two countries will coordinate closely and support each other more at multilateral forums, especially within the framework of the United Nations, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Group of Seven (G77) and in contributing to the success of the G20.

President Ciryl Ramaphosa highly appreciated and supported the Prime Minister's proposals, especially emphasizing support for Vietnam's practical, effective approach and spirit of urgent action; he was pleased that in just a short time after the President's visit to Vietnam, the two sides actively negotiated and agreed on a Joint Statement on upgrading relations to a Strategic Partnership as well as an Agreement on Agricultural Cooperation, which has been discussed for many years. The President pledged to direct South African authorities to closely coordinate with Vietnamese partners to soon realize the contents agreed upon by the two sides' senior leaders.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh emphasized that Vietnam and South Africa have always been together in the struggle for national independence and human rights. Today, the two countries will be together in building and developing the country in the spirit of trust and comradeship.

At the end of the meeting, the two leaders agreed to adopt a Joint Statement upgrading the relationship to a Strategic Partnership and witnessed the signing ceremony of a Memorandum of Understanding on agricultural cooperation between the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment of Vietnam and the Ministry of Agriculture of South Africa./.

Source: https://baotintuc.vn/thoi-su/nang-cap-quan-he-viet-nam-nam-phi-len-doi-tac-chien-luoc-20251121183651845.htm